Sunday, August 23, 2026
Thirteenth Sunday of Pentecost
Text: Matthew 16:13-20
On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. – v. 18
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Lead In – Our Gospel Reading marks a turning point in Matthew’s Gospel. Upon the Apostle Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Christ begins to build His Church. And Baptism plays a key role in how Christ builds His Church and adds members to the household of God. This is made clear in our Lord’s mandate to His disciples in Matthew 28:20 which reads, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
- Important Things to Know About the Church
There are some important things to know about the Church, and we will look at a few of those things that jump out to us in the Gospel Reading. The term ‘church’ is used for the first time in the Gospel Accounts in Matthew 16. It is used only three times in the Four Gospel Accounts, and all three times it is in Matthew’s Gospel. But in the Book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament it is used well over a hundred times.
Three things stand out immediately. The Church starts with Christ! It did not originate with the Apostle Peter, the Apostle Paul, Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, or C.F.W. Walther. Our Lord Jesus Christ founded His Church. And Christ the Lord is the builder of His Church. Accordingly, the Church belongs to Him. It does not belong to us! And no matter what name we give to an individual church; it is still Christ’s Church. We do well to remember this!
Christ’s Church is identified with and built upon the good confession of faith. And by good we mean true and faithful. And by confession, here we don’t mean an admission of sin with a plea for forgiveness. That is one meaning of the word. Here we mean a statement of what we believe, as in “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.”
A good way to think of the Church is how it is identified by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2 where he calls it the household of God. And may I remind you that we become adopted as children of God in His household by baptism accompanied with faith. This we read in Galatians 3:26-27, “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”
Little wonder that the Rite of Christian Baptism includes the good confession of faith as it is expressed in the Apostles’ Creed. Of course, that Creed expands a little on the simple confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. But it absolutely includes this confession and further buttresses it from popular false interpretations. We have three creeds, at least one of which we confess almost every time we gather for worship. They are the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds.
- Concerning the Rock-Solid Good Confession
So, Peter utters the good confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus responds, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona!” Jesus confirms that Peter has it right. Then Jesus continues, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” What Peter uttered with his lips correctly is not the result of something a human being came up with on their own. With mankind fallen in sin and darkened in his understanding this recognition of Jesus’ identity is not something that Peter discovered on his own steam, nor anything any of the rest of us could discern on our own. For whatever reason, Peter was the chosen vessel or instrument to first make this good confession.
Jesus goes on to say something that has been controversial in its interpretation through history. He says, “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” The all-important question becomes who or what is the rock referring to? This can be sliced several ways, but let’s simplify it with two alternatives. Is the rock Peter who has just made the good confession? Or is it the good confession that Peter made? I’m a Lutheran, and I put the emphasis on the confession. But I readily admit that the Apostle Peter does not seem incidental. After all, Simon receives from Christ the new name, Peter, which is a play on the word for rock. Call him Rocky if you will. And there is no question that Simon Peter was looked to as a leader among the Twelve Apostles. And then in the early Church he and the Apostle Paul were both highly respected and looked to as leaders.
Ephesians 2:19-21 holds sway in our understanding of the rock upon which Christ builds His Church. The Apostle Paul is writing to Gentile converts to the Christian Faith when he writes “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”
Here it is clear that Christ Himself is the cornerstone. The rest of the foundation involves the apostles and prophets. They are the instruments through whom the good confession is spoken and then recorded in writing. With the Old Testament prophets this good confession was anticipatory, partial, and a foreshadowing. With the Apostles it became finalized, full, and concrete. But notice how the full confession made by Peter, was buttressed by the prophetic voice of the Old Testament and then voiced in harmony among all the New Testament Apostles.
That Christ’s Church is built upon a rock indicates the solid, enduring, and permanent nature of the Church! This contrast is brought out beautifully in our First Reading from Isaiah 51. We read in the first verse, “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.” This is a plea for coming back to the solid foundation of the Covenant God had established with Abraham and his descendants. And this is contrasted with the passing and transitory things of this age. Therefore the people are warned in verse 6, “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner;but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.”
A rock, plain and simple, is an appropriate symbol of something, strong, solid, enduring, and permanent. And in Matthew 21 Jesus likens Himself to a building stone that had been rejected. And yet God has made it the cornerstone of His temple, indeed a stone that many stumble over. If this stone falls on someone they will be crushed. And Jesus says in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
- We Are All Called to Confess Publicly
Brothers and sisters in Christ, when it comes to our being Christ’s disciples, as baptized believers we need to recognize that the Christian Faith is not a private affair. I am not aware of any Divine calling in the Church for secret agents. And we are all enjoined to make the good confession of faith. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 10: 10, “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” What we confess with our mouths and demonstrate with our lives is an important avenue for how the Word of God comes to others.
Part of what we can confess is in what God’s Word has promised takes place in Baptism. Romans 6 is hard to beat in informing us of the wonderful promise connected with Baptism.
We read in Romans 6:3-5, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
Now there is one part of the promise that might make us grimace. And that is the part about being baptized or immersed, for that is what the word literally means, into Christ’s death. This unpleasant reality has everything to do with the turning point in Matthew’s Gospel. Up to chapter 16 Jesus has been gradually revealing His identity to His disciples, while also teaching them the nature of the kingdom of heaven. But from Peter’s confession on Jesus resolutely, in the words of Luke 9:51, ‘set His face to go to Jerusalem’. That is, He was determined to accomplish what He had come down from heaven to do. And that is to die sacrificially on the Cross for our sins, so that we can be forgiven and receive the gift of eternal life.
But there is a rub here. It is from this point on that Jesus will talk about the conditions necessarily accompany being His disciple. In the immediate verses following our Gospel Reading, Jesus lets His followers know they need to be prepared for bearing a cross. They need to learn to put their own ambitions aside and follow Jesus come what may. Our vocations will involve serving God, and in serving God also serving others. There is a certain self-abandonment in this. And as anyone who has begun to take up this vocation seriously there is meaning, purpose, and a deep-seated joy beyond compare in this. And there is also the confidence in the only sure hope there is in the world. And it is all in being a part of the Church that Christ our Lord establishes and builds.
And Now for a Final Word – The ultimate goal of Baptism is that we might share in a resurrection like our Lord’s. The immediate benefit of Baptism is that we can already walk in newness of life. At the same time, we need to be aware that walking in newness of life will put us out of step with the cadence of the world. We will have enemies, three especially: the devil, the world, and the flesh, also known as our sinful nature. And yet, this newness of life with the bold confession of the Faith, is the very means to draw others to the Faith. The very way Christ builds His Church. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard and keep you in the true faith unto life everlasting. Amen.