Seek First: The Church

Seek First: The Church (Matt 16:18-19)
• The Church is the body of Christ and the Bride of Christ. You can’t love one without loving the other.
o But to love the church we must understand the mission of the church.
Verse 16 Jesus is talking to Peter and setting him up to be the leader of His church.
• This is also a new day in God’s redemptive history.
o This is the first time Jesus uses the term church.
 The word church means “an assembly of people gathered for a common purpose”
o So, the instructions that follow are something we should pay attention to.
• A key to understanding this, is the idea that all the power of hell can’t overcome or conquer the church.
o The word conquer means just that, or to prevail against.
• There are two key concepts here.
o First, Death cannot overcome the church
 Satan will never be able to extinguish the church by simply causing the death of its members.
o Second, the church is being given the authority to overcome all the power of the enemy.
Verse 19 This verse has to be seen as a key activity of the church.
• Jesus is giving the church the keys to heaven.
o Which represent the authority we have been given.
• This considerable authority we have been given is to advance against the enemy.
 If there was no enemy, we wouldn’t need the authority.
 We would not need the authority of heaven if we didn’t have a devil to fight.
• 1 John 3:8 “…The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”
• That was the mission of Jesus in one simple statement.
o But that mission now becomes the mission of the church.
Continuing in verse 19 This is how that authority gets put into practice – binding and loosing.
• This battle is won first in prayer, binding and loosing starts and ends with prayer.
o I can’t bind the work of the enemy in the physical realm.
o I also can’t release the Kingdom of heaven in the physical realm.
• This of course starts with recognizing what is of the kingdom of God and what is of the enemy.
o Knowing what do we bind and what do we loose?
Binding and loosing is also demonstrated in the church through the use of spiritual gifts.
• We bind in lose through prayer, but also through the exercise of our spiritual gifts.
• In 1 Cor 12 Paul talks about the church being like a human body, all parts are equal and needed.
• The same holds true if someone is missing.
o If you are the toe, and you are missing from church week after week the church limps.
o We are not as effective in our efforts to destroy the devils work.