Matthew 16:18-20
“Using the Keys of the Kingdom”
Translation
& Sermon by Nate Wilson for
Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 04 Nov 2012
Translation
16:13 After Jesus came into the limits
of Caesarea Philippi, He started quizzing His disciples, saying, “Who am I that
the people are saying to be the Son of Man?”
16:14 So they said, “Some [say] John the
Baptizer, and others Elijah, and various ones Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
16:15 He says to them, “Now [how about]
y’all? Who do y’all say me to be?”
16:16 And, in answer, Rock Simon said,
“You are The Anointed One, The Son of the Living God.”
16:17 Then in answer, Jesus said to him,
“Simon, son of John, you are blessed because flesh and blood did not make a
revelation to you, but rather my Father in the heavens did!
16:18 And I also say to you that you are
Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will
not be as strong as she!
16:19 And I will give to you the keys of
the kingdom of the heavens
and whatever you might bind upon the
earth will be so, having been bound in the heavens,
and whatever you might release upon the
earth will be so, having been released in the heavens.
16:20 Then He laid down the law to His
disciples that they should say to no one that He was the Anointed One.
Review
- Jesus seems to have taken His
disciples to a retreat location in order to prep them for what was coming
next – an intense time of ministry in Jerusalem followed by His death and
resurrection. In this session, Jesus assures them that death
will not beat Him.
- Jesus
calls Himself the Son of Man
(Υἱὸς τοῦ
ἀνθρώπου),
emphasizing that He is
- a
true human being,
- a representative
of the human race, and
- the
heavenly judge foretold by Daniel who would come down from
God.
- Jesus starts with the
all-important question of who He is, and the question
is two-fold:
- Do the people to whom the disciples
preached understand who Jesus is? In other words, have the disciples been
effective in their preaching? And
- Do the disciples know who Jesus is?
- Peter accurately
expresses who Jesus is in v.16 “You are
The Anointed One, The Son of the Living God.” This expression
indicates that Jesus is God,
and the word “Christ” means “Messiah” or “Anointed One” –
that is, the ultimate Prophet (who delivered God’s word to
people), the ultimate Priest (who would sacrifice Himself to
draw estranged humans and an offended God back together); and the eternal King
(who would act as lawgiver, Judge, and protector of God’s people).
- Jesus’ response
to Peter in vs. 17-18 could be summarized as communicating four things:
- The truth
that Peter expressed and the faith that Peter had do not
come naturally through scientific observation or intellectual
rationalizing; they are revealed by a personal God who blesses
individual humans,
- Jesus is building
a movement of people He calls His church,
- Jesus would use Peter
in the building of this church – not that Peter would replace Jesus
as the foundation and cornerstone of the church, and not that
Peter would be the only apostle Jesus used, but that as Peter
spoke God’s truth and acted in faith (as he had done with his recent confession
of faith), Peter would have much influence as an early leader in the
church. (God reveals and blesses
personally, Jesus is building His church, Jesus would use Peter, and…)
- This movement Jesus
calls His church would be unstoppable; not even the “Gates of Hades,”
which I interpret as being the death of Jesus – and later of His followers – would
take the wind out of the sails of this divinely-orchestrated movement of
people into faith in
Jesus and a blessed personal relationship with the true and Living God.
Now
with that background, Jesus turns to the duties of a leader in this church
movement that He is building and, like a good king, He equips Peter (the particular
leader He is talking to) with the tools Peter will need to carry out his responsibility
in the church:
Exposition
16:19
And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens and whoever you
might bind upon the earth will be so, having been bound in the heavens, and
whatever you might release upon the earth will be so, having been released in
the heavens.
[και]
δωσω σοι τας κλεις
της βασιλειας
των ουρανων
και ὃ εαν δησης
επι της γης
εσται
δεδεμενον εν
τοις ουρανοις
και ὃ εαν λυσης
επι της γης
εσται
λελυμενον
εν τοις
ουρανοις
- This tool that Jesus
promises to give to Peter (The “you” here is singular, referring to
Peter.) is a set of keys.
- My neighbors who
lived across the street from me PCS’ed to another state and arranged for
my sons to manage their house as a rental, so my sons Josh and Beni have been showing the house to prospective renters, accepting applications, and
communicating back and forth with our former neighbors who still own the
house. They eventually settled on one particular family, and last week
they went through a little ceremony where they walked through the house
together, signed a rental contract, and Josh handed the house-keys to this
new renter.
- What
does ownership of a key mean?
- First, Keys mean
that you have rights to the house – either because you built
the house and earned the rights to it, or because the owner
decided to trust you with his house and gave you the rights
to it,
- like Josh gave
the keys to the new renter across the street because our former
neighbors checked their references and ran credit checks and decided
that these new renters could be trusted with their house.
- These new renters
now have it within their power to improve the house or trash the house
because they have been given the rights to the house along with the
keys. These rights are exclusive – we don’t go leaving the keys in the
door for just anyone to take advantage of the value of our house.
- Second, Keys mean
that you live in the house. You let yourself in with the keys and
lock the door behind you; that’s what we use keys for practically.
- And third, Keys
mean that you control who comes in and out of the house. We
unlock the door and let guests in; we lock the door to keep robbers out.
- Now, let’s apply
these three principles to the keys to the kingdom of heaven:
- First we see that the kingdom of heaven – that is the realm of
people and things which are not in rebellion to God, and which
corresponds to the church – those who respond to His heavenly kingship
with faith and obedience to Him – this community is owned by the one who
built it: Jesus Himself. He properly owns this house and its keys.
- Jesus
is pictured in Revelation 3:7 as having the key of David:
"And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: 'The words
of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who
opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.”
- Jesus is also the owner of the keys
of Death and Hell: Rev. 1:17-18 “…I am the
first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive
forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” (NASB)
- As the builder and
owner of the house, Jesus also has the power to hand a copy of the key to
anyone to whom He wants to entrust the upkeep of His house that He built.
So Jesus has every right to hand these rights out to Peter here,
and to all His disciples in Matthew 18:18.
- In Isa. 22:22, we
see God exercising that right by removing an unfaithful steward named Shebna
and instead placing the key on Eliakim’s shoulder (because all government is ultimately to be upon Jesus’
shoulder - Isa. 9:6) “I will place on his shoulder the key of the
house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he
shall shut, and none shall open.”
- There were other
stewards of the house of David who acted unfaithfully with their
leadership privileges during Jesus’ day. These were Bible scholars called scribes or lawyers
who specialized in studying and teaching the Bible, but who didn’t use
their status to help other people understand how to live in a blessed
relationship with God. Jesus said in Luke 11:52, “Woe
to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You
did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering."
- This brings us to the second function of keys – the ability to
take up residence in a house.
- Jesus was saying
to those Bible scholars in Luke 11:52 that they had the keys but weren’t
willing to live in the house.
- Can you imagine if
you rented a house to someone, but they decided to live in a tent in the
front yard instead? You go visit with them one winter day as their teeth
chatter with cold and their skin is red with exposure and say, “Why
aren’t you living in the house? I gave you the keys.”
“Well, it’s very complicated,” they reply, “You see, it takes a great
deal of skill to manipulate the door lock, and even if you could get in,
it takes a very special kind of person to live in this house – we’re not
sure if even we are able to do it. We’d best just stay outside and take
our chances.”
You’d probably have something to say
about a tenant like that, “Hey, I’m sorry, you’re messing up
the lawn and creating sanitation problems, and your tent looks unsightly.
If you’re not going to live in my house, I’m going to change the locks
and rent to somebody else who likes living in my house.”
- The
church is a body in which God Himself takes up residence:
- 1 Cor. 6:19 …do you not know that your body is
a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God…?
- 2 Cor. 13:5 …do you not recognize this about
yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you…? (NASB)
- And
those to whom Jesus gives the keys to the kingdom also should be members
in the church:
- Rom. 12:5
so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members
one of another.
- 1Cor. 12:27
Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it. (NASB)
- And so we come to
the third function of keys: each person who lives in the house and has a
key to let themselves in and out also has the ability to use their key to
let in some people and lock out other people.
- “The Keys to the
Kingdom are… ‘the doctrine of salvation, and the full declaration of the
way in which God will save sinners; and who they are that shall be
finally excluded from heaven; and on what account. When the Jews made a
man a doctor of the law, they put into his hand the key of the closet in
the temple where the sacred books were kept… signifying, by this, that
they gave him authority to teach, and to explain the Scriptures to the
people’… When the Saviour says, therefore, he will give to Peter the
keys of the kingdom of heaven, he means that he will make him the
instrument of opening the door of faith to the world, the first [apostle]
to preach the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles.” ~Adam Clarke (1715-1832)
- In
Revelation 3:7-9 we see Jews trying to tell the Gentiles in a church in
Turkey that God does not love them, so God tells these gentile believers
that those Jews are from Satan and that they can’t shut the door that
God has opened to them. And why has God opened the door to them? “...because you have a little
power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name.” There’s the power of God enabling people to
obey Him and confess that Jesus is the Christ.
- The same metaphor
is used in Acts 14:27, when Paul and Barnabas returned to their home
church in Antioch, Syria, after their first missionary journey of
preaching the Gospel and starting churches throughout modern-day Turkey, “to report all things that God had done with them and how He had opened a
door of faith to the Gentiles.”
- The key to get into heaven is to believe what Peter confessed - that
Jesus is the Christ:
- the Anointed
Prophet who declared all that God wanted to reveal to us,
- the Anointed
Priest who offered Himself on the cross to endure the wrath of God
poured out upon Him for the sins that all of us have committed, so that
God’s wrath would not have to be poured out on us, then rose from the
dead and ascended to the right hand of the throne of God to intercede
for us and reconcile us to God,
- and that Jesus is
the Anointed King whom we honor and obey.
- That key of faith can
be shared freely with others and duplicated.
- Peter used the key of his faith to swing the door open
wide for other people to enter the kingdom of God, preaching to crowds
in Jewish Jerusalem (Acts 2), Samaritan Samaria (Acts 8), and Roman
Caesarea (Acts 10), although there was a point where he
slammed the door on some Gentiles when he shouldn’t have (Gal. 2:11-18)…
- Of course, Peter
wasn’t the only one to use his key of faith to open the kingdom
of heaven to others. Phillip preceeded him in Samaria (Acts 8), John
accompanied him to Samaria, and others who remain unnamed
preached the Gospel with great success to Gentiles in Antioch, Syria,
and there were even some African believers at the same time who
were the first to preach the Gospel to gentiles in Cyprus (Acts
11:19-20), and then there’s Paul who is converted to a belief
that Jesus is the Christ and then preaches the Gospel to Gentiles
throughout Asia (Acts 19:10) and Europe (Rom. 15:19).
- Those of us who have this same key handed to us by
God’s grace can, in turn, use our testimony of who Jesus is to open the
door to the kingdom of God to others as we share about Him. Our
testimony can also end up shutting the door, as the Heidelberg
Confession explains:
- Heidelberg Catechism #84: How is the kingdom
of heaven opened and shut by the preaching of the holy gospel? Answer: Thus: when according to the
command of Christ, it is declared and publicly testified to all and
every believer, that, whenever they receive the promise of the gospel by
a true faith, all their sins are really forgiven them of God, for the
sake of Christ's merits; and on the contrary, when it is declared and
testified to all unbelievers, and such as do not sincerely repent, that
they stand exposed to the wrath of God, and eternal condemnation, so
long as they are unconverted: according to which testimony of the
gospel, God will judge them, both in this, and in the life to come.
- What
does “bind” and “loose” mean?
The Bible commentators I like were divided among three
basic opinions:
- One interpretation was that “binding” and “loosing” is still
talking about allowing entry to the kingdom of heaven by preaching (or
not preaching) the Gospel.
- This has
the advantage of simplicity, continuing the same thought as before
rather than shifting to other issues such as church discipline or O.T.
ceremonial law.
- Old
books and scrolls would have ties on them to hold them closed, so a
teacher would have to unbind the book or scroll before reading it to the
people, so there may be an allusion to that as well.
- John Calvin
(1560’s) was probably the best spokesman for this position when he wrote
in his Harmony of the Gospels,
“…Christ, by setting us free by His Gospel from the guilt of eternal
death, looses the snares of the curse by which we were held bound…
[L]oosed by the voice and testimony of men on earth, we may in actual
fact be loosed also in heaven… Christ pronounces that it is by the
preaching of the Gospel that there is revealed on earth what God’s future
and heavenly judgment will be… It is a great honor that we are God’s interpreters
to bear witness to the world of His salvation.”
- Matthew
Henry added, “When ministers preach pardon and peace to the penitent,
wrath and the curse to the impenitent, in Christ's name, they act then
pursuant to this authority of binding and loosing.” The choice not to proclaim the good news is a
way of binding the message, just as the apostle Paul did in Psidian
Antioch (Acts 13:46) and in Corinth (Acts 18:6) when the Jews in the
synagogue rejected his messag,e and he decided to share with Gentiles instead.
- A
second interpretation is that “binding” and “loosing” has to do with the legislative
power to change the OT ceremonial law.
- It
seemed to be held by the 17th-19th century writers
like Lightfoot, Henry,
Clarke, Gill,
and Vincent:
- In favor of this
interpretation is the common usage of these words “bind” and “loose” among
the Jewish scholars of Jesus’ day. For example: “[T]hey said about
gathering wood on the Sabbath day, ‘The school of Shammei binds it’ -
i.e., forbids it; ‘the school of Hillel looses it’ - i.e., allows it…
~Adam Clarke
(1715-1832) So, I
suppose if you wanted to gather wood on the Sabbath, you’d want to be a
follower of Rabbi Hillel, not Rabbi Shammei!
- Also in favor of
this interpretation is the neuter gender, which generally does
not refer to persons in Greek, but to things – “whatsoever,”
not “whosoever” you bind or loose, refering to Jewish customs which
could be forbidden or allowed. (Clarke)
- Dr. John Lightfoot
(1658) put it eloquently, “Whatsoever ye shall bind in the law of Moses,
that is, forbid, it shall be forbidden, the Divine authority confirming
it; and whatsoever ye shall loose, that is, permit, or shall teach that
it is permitted and lawful, shall be lawful and permitted. Hence they
bound, that is forbade, circumcision to the believers (Gal. 5:1); eating
of things offered to idols, of things strangled, and of blood, for a
time, to the Gentiles (Acts 15:29); and that which they bound on earth
was confirmed in heaven. They loosed, that is, allowed: purification to
Paul, and to four other brethren, for the shunning of scandal (Acts 21:24)…
‘I am about to build a Gentile Church,’ saith Christ, and to thee, O
Peter, do I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that thou mayest
first open the door of faith to them; but if thou askest by what rule
that Church is to be governed, when the Mosaic rule may seem so improper
for it, thou shalt be so guided by the Holy Spirit, that whatsoever of
the law of Moses thou shalt forbid them shall be forbidden; whatsoever
thou grantest them shall be granted; and that under a sanction made in
heaven.’ Hence, in that instant, when he should use his keys, that is,
when he was now ready to open the gate of the Gospel to the Gentiles [at
Cornelius’ house – Acts 10], he was taught from heaven that the
consorting of the Jew with the Gentile, which before had been bound, was
now loosed; and the eating of any creature convenient for food was now
loosed, which before had been bound; and he in like manner looses both
these…”
- Matthew Henry made
a good application by saying, “There is also an ordinary power hereby
conveyed to all ministers, to preach the gospel as appointed officers;
to tell people, in God's name, and according to the scriptures, ‘what is
good, and what the Lord requires’ of them [Micah 6:8]: and they who
declare the whole counsel of God, use these keys well.”
- The
third interpretation is that “binding” and “loosing” had to do with the
judicial power of accepting church members or excommunicating them.
- This
definitely seemed to be a minority opinion, but it is a logical outflow
of the responsibilities of church leaders.
- The strongest
point in favor of this position is that the same phrase appears in the
context of Jesus’ later discourse on church discipline:
- “If your brother
sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you
have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with
you, so that BY
THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.
If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he
refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and
a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall
have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have
been loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about
anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who
is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name,
I am there in their midst." (Matthew 18:1-20, NASB)
- 20th Century Bible commentator William Hendriksen had
this to say, “The one who has the keys … determines who should be
admitted and who must be refused admission… Discipline was… exercised by
The Twelve, and here again the role played by Peter is emphasized [As he
early on brings judgment upon Ananias and Saphira for lying to make
themselves look more generous than they really were – Acts 5:1-11].
Somewhat later Paul, too, very effectively used both keys: the preaching
of the gospel and the exercise of discipline… [In the case of the man
who was committing adultery with his mom that Paul told the Corinthians
to cast out of the church (1 Cor. 5:1-5), but who later repented and was
welcomed back into the church (2 Cor. 2:8)]… If a person continued to do
or to believe what was forbidden, refusing to repent, he would be
disciplined… Hence, indirectly the passage also has implications with
respect to the good standing, or lack of good standing of church members…
[but] only when this is done in thorough harmony … with the Word of God.
Jesus definitely condemned any arbitrary binding and loosing [that the
Pharisees did].” ~Wm. Hendriksen
- So there are your
three interpretations on binding and loosing: 1) Shaking the dust off your
feet vs. Preaching the Gospel 2) Prohibiting vs. Allowing Jewish
ceremonial practices, or 3) Accepting vs. Rejecting people from church
membership. Every one of these three interpretations has scriptural
backing, so I hope it’s not a cop-out for me to say I like them all and
that they may all be facets of the use of the keys of the kingdom of God.
There
is one more thing I’d like to address concerning this binding and loosing, and
that is the relationship between earth and heaven in this process:
- “Shall
be bound in heaven… shall be loosed in heaven”
- These are Perfect
passive participles in the Greek text: NASB makes the best translation of
them that I’ve seen in print: “shall have been bound in heaven…
shall have been loosed in heaven.”
- This means that the
condition was already in force in heaven when it was enforced on
earth. “You bind? It has already been bound in heaven.”
- Now, if that is the
case, then God must be the initiator of these things, not Peter, because
it happens in heaven before Peter does it on earth. (It is unfortunate
that the other translations make it sound like Peter could play “Simon Says”
with God and make God copy everything he does on earth, because the
Perfect verb tense indicates it’s the other way around.)
- Peter and the
apostles – and even we today – “bind” and “loose” on earth to express
what God has already decreed as bound and released in His heavenly
counsels.
- This means that
binding and loosing are not some arbitrary power given to Peter – or any other
church leader – to make God do what they want; Peter, in his epistles
toward the end of the N.T., portrayed himself as a “fellow-elder” among
other church elders (1 Pet. 5:1) under the leadership of Jesus, the
“chief Shepherd” (1 Pet 5:4), following the “example” (1 Pet. 2:21) of
Christ.
- That is what all
church leaders should be doing. We should say, “Does God approve of this in
the Bible? Then I say you are free to follow your conscience. Does God forbid
this in the Bible? Then I say you are bound to obey Him.”
One
more point bears mention concerning this verse, and that is the position of
Peter relative to the other apostles.
- What
is Peter’s role in the continuing church?
- The Roman Catholic
church uses this passage as the basis for their claim that the Apostle
Peter was the first Pope of Rome and that the succeeding popes of Rome have special rights over deciding who will go to heaven and who will go to hell.
- However, the Bible
does not support the claim that Peter was ever a church official in Rome
(Paul wrote several books of the Bible from Rome but never mentions
Peter being there, and furthermore, the rather unflattering things Paul
says about the other religious leaders in Rome in Phil. 2:20 and 2 Tim.
4:16 would imply that Peter was a bad leader if he was in Rome.)
- Additionally, the
Bible makes plain that although Peter led the other apostles at times,
there were other times when other apostles took the lead over him, for instance:
- in Acts 15, we
see James presiding over the meeting of the apostles and elders, and
Peter only temporarily getting the floor,
- and in Gal. 2:11,
we see Paul calling Peter on the carpet for caving in to peer pressure
from fellow Jews to discriminate against Gentiles.
- Furthermore, even
the earliest church fathers recognized that the keys were not an exclusive
gift to Peter or of popes, but for all of us:
- “In the person of
one man he gave the keys to all that He might denote the unity of all;
the rest, therefore were the same that Peter was.” ~ Cyprian (c. 250 A.D., de Simplic. Praelat.)
- “All we that are
priests [– and indeed the Bible says in Rev. 1:6 that all of us in the
kingdom of heaven are priests –] received, in the person of the blessed
apostle Peter, the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” ~Ambrose (c. 374 A.D., De Dignit. Sacerd.-Translated by Matthew
Henry)
- The clincher,
however, is that in Matthew 18, this same power is given to ALL the disciples:
18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus… And He … said…, 18:18
“Truly I say to you, whatever y’all bind [δησητε-2nd
plural] on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever y’all
loose [λυσητε-2nd plural] on
earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” (NASB) So the authority that Jesus said Peter would exercise as a church
leader was nothing more than what Jesus gave to all His disciples. Peter
was a great leader in the early church, but there was nothing Popish
about him.
16:20 Then
He laid down the law to His disciples that they should say to no one that He
was the Anointed One.
Τοτε
διεστειλατο
τοις μαθηταις [αυτου]
‘ινα μηδενι ειπωσιν
‘οτι αυτος εστιν
‘ο χριστος
- This word Diesteilato, translated “strictlyESV
chargedKJV/commandedNKJ/warnedNAS,NIV, is
a strong word that is not used often in the Bible. The word picture is of
drawing a line in the sand. Why would Jesus make a big deal of swearing
His men to secrecy on this great truth which Peter had confessed?
- Jesus wanted to
secure in the minds of His disciples this truth that He is God and
Christ, the ultimate Prophet, Priest and King, but it wasn’t time yet for
the public proclamation of this truth.
- The timing was
important. Jesus was very much in control over the circumstances of His
death. He wasn’t trying to prevent His death, but He had an interest in
timing His death to come after He had covered a certain amount of
teaching of His disciples, and I believe He wanted to time His death to coincide
with the Passover Sabbath.
- The title of
Messiah had so many political overtones in Jewish popular thinking, that
the authorities couldn’t help but assume that anyone who claimed to be
Messiah was trying to overthrow the government with a coup d’état. Jesus
knew that public proclamation of Him being the Christ/Messiah/Anointed
One would quickly move the Pharisees and Sadducees to kill Him, so He
wanted His disciples to wait until the right time.
- The time came later,
during the week of Passover, when He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and
let His followers openly proclaim Him to be the Messiah with their cries
of “Save us! (Hosanna) Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name
of the Lord.” That did it; the authorities killed Jesus less than a week
after that!
- Notice in the previous verse that Jesus used the future tense, “I
WILL give you the keys”
- Peter was not yet
released to open the door of faith wide to everyone (as we see in the
next verse in Matt. 16), so when would Peter get these keys?
- Eighteenth century
Bible commentator John Gill wrote a good explanation: “The keys of [the
kingdom] are abilities to open and explain the Gospel truths, and a
mission and commission from Christ to make use of them… in a little time [Jesus]
would… give his apostles both a commission and gifts, qualifying them to
open the sealed book of the Gospel, and unlock the mysteries of it both
to Jews and Gentiles...”
- Once
the Great Commission was given at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Peter
(and every one of us after Him who believes that Jesus is the Christ) is
commissioned and given the gift of the Holy Spirit to “go to town”
opening doors by sharing our key that Jesus is God and Christ!
Conclusion
- Has Jesus given you the key of faith? Do you
believe that Jesus is the Christ? That His Word is the only place to get
the truth? That He died on the cross to pay for your sins? That He is God
in heaven and king over all? That’s the all-important first step.
- Then, are you using that key to live in His
house? Or are you camped outside, making excuses for not going in? Enter
in by faith; don’t be afraid to get close to God and His people.
- And now, if you are living in His house as one of
those living stones with which He is building His church, are you using
your key to open the door for others to come in? Pray for opportunities to
share the good news that Jesus delights in saving people from bondage to
sin and despair, and take the opportunities God gives you!
- Then, as you make
disciples, will you teach them to obey all that Christ commanded? (Mt. 28)
- Will you stay
tethered to His heavenly decrees recorded in the Bible so as not to burden
people with your man-made rules? Let God’s “will be done on earth as it is
in heaven!” (Mt. 6:10)
- And
finally, are you being timely? There is “a time to speak and a time
to be silent.” “Like apples
of gold in settings of silver Is a word spoken in right circumstances.” (Prov.
25:8-15, NASB)