The following message is by Pastor John Piper.
More information from Desiring God Ministries is available
at www.DesiringGod.org Our scripture test this
morning is from Matthew, chapter 16, verses 13
to 26.
Now when Jesus came into the district of
Caesarea Philippi, he began asking his disciples, saying,
Who do people say that the Son of
Man is?
And they said, Some say John the Baptist,
and others Elijah, but still others Jeremiah, or
one of the prophets.
He said to them, But who do you
say that I am?
And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art
the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed
are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and
blood did not reveal this to you, but
my Father who is in heaven.
And I also say to you that you
are Peter, and upon this rock I will
build my church, and the gates of Hades
shall not overpower it.
I will give you the keys to the
kingdom of heaven, and whatever you shall bind
on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatever you shall loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven.
Then he warned the disciples that they should
tell no one that he was the Christ.
From that time Jesus Christ began to show
his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem
and suffer many things from the elders and
the chief priests and scribes, and be killed,
and be raised up on the third day.
And Peter took him aside and began to
rebuke him, saying, God forbid it, Lord, this
shall never happen to you.
But he turned and said to Peter, Get
behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling block
to me, for you are not setting your
mind on God's interests, but man's.
Lord Jesus Christ, you have told us now
in this word that you are going to
build your church.
And so I'm asking, risen living Christ, that
in your mercy you would give heed to
us now and fulfill that promise in this
hour, not just to build Bethlehem in strength
and humility and love and grace and spiritual
power, but that through what you're about to
do in this service you would build your
church among the unreached peoples of the world.
I ask, Father, that you would call college
students and children and teenagers and people in
the middle of their careers and people who
are about to be retired or who are
retired, that from all those groups there would
be a summoning from their present position into
a going to the unreached peoples of the
world in this service.
This is your work.
You told us, pray the Lord of the
harvest that he would send forth laborers.
So you are the great sender.
We are secondary.
You are primary.
You call, we confirm.
And so grant, I pray, that calls would
be issued through my mouth in the name
of Jesus.
Establish us as ascending church, make us strong
in it and call out in this service
from those who are over there in the
overflow space, Lord.
And for those in this room here, grant,
I pray that.
Your voice would be heard in this service,
in this text and through this message.
And a call would be issued irrevocable and
the people would find themselves in a decade
to come.
Serving in a place they never dreamed.
Supporting, speaking the gospel to people who've never
heard it and who desperately need to hear
it that they might live.
So we're asking for a mighty work now
in this service.
In Jesus mighty name.
Amen.
I listened to Oscar's message as soon as
I got home on Thursday and was not
disappointed.
You remember if you were here last week
as we began Missions Week, Oscar issued a
call of summons to prepare shepherds and elders
for churches among the unreached in the age
of Jihad.
By avoiding unnecessary controversy and by being saturated
with the Bible and by taking up a
courageous place to speak the word somewhere in
the world.
And then he said the outrageous thing, the
truly outrageous thing that Jihad is a gift
to the American church because it calls the
bluff of nominal American Christians.
And tells us to wake up and make
disciples and plant churches lest we be made
disciples of Islam or other aggressive evangelistic enterprises.
It's a gift to us, he said, because
it blesses us with economic insecurity and thus
helps us to move toward the wartime lifestyle
we should have been living all along anyway.
He said it was a gift to us
because it helps us identify with the rest
of the world who doesn't live in Disneyland
and have had the insecurities and the threats
all along.
And maybe now for once we'll know how
to shepherd shepherds who could serve in that
real church.
And he said it was a gift to
us because it would help us to center
our discipling upon our homes instead of this
building because it and John Piper can get
blown up anyway.
So you better not lean too heavily on
the building or the preacher because that's going
to disappear one of these days.
And if you don't have a home based
way of doing discipleship for your children and
for the people's won't get done.
And it's a gift to us, he said,
because after all, isn't it the resurrection that
matters in the end anyway?
Well, well, well, God bless you, Oscar.
I hope I can be faithful to what
you have begun now to pick up where
he left off.
I want to issue a call this morning.
It will be people who've come into the
room already persuaded that you should cross a
culture and take the gospel to an unreached
people.
You know that.
And that's where you're heading.
And so you'll come.
The other group are people who've come into
the service thinking maybe, maybe.
And in this service, God touches you, speaks
to you, does something in you so that
it feels like, wow, I must really seriously
consider this.
Because I think God is working my life
to loosen me from where I am to
get me to another place, to another people.
And you're going to come and I'll pray
for you, whether that's of God or not.
And then the others will be people who
didn't come into this room with missions on
your radar screen.
You, in fact, which you could walk out
right now because you don't care at all
about this issue.
And you will be touched, perhaps before the
service is over, that this is not only
something that the church should be very concerned
about, but that you should be very concerned
about and that God might in fact have
a call on your life to leave your
people group and go to another people group
to carry the gospel.
So that's my aim, is to get those
people assembled, pray over them and see them
mobilized and strengthened and empowered to disappear out
of our midst for the sake of the
kingdom in the years to come.
Three points related to this text.
I'll tell you what they are, then we'll
take them one at a time.
Number one, Christ's triumphant, authoritative promise.
I will build my church.
I'll do this.
That's number one.
Number two, Christ's unwavering commitment to build it,
to build his church, to gather his elect
from all the peoples of the world, not
just westerners and not just white and not
just black or red or yellow, but every
shade, every shape, every tribe, every tongue from
all over the world.
He's passionately committed to this multi-cultural, multi
-ethnic, multi-linguistic church.
Third, Christ's radical way of winning the nations,
namely by the death of himself and the
death of his people.
That's the way he'll do it.
Not with bombs and not with swords and
not with bullets.
Point number one, Christ's triumphant commitment to build
his church.
Verse 15.
Who do you say that I am?
He asks.
Peter answers on their behalf.
You are the Christ that is the Messiah,
the son of the living God.
Jesus answers, says to him, verse 17.
Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and
blood did not reveal this to you, but
my father who is in heaven.
I also say to you that you are
Peter, Petros, and on this rock, Petra, I
will build my church and the gates of
Hades will not overpower it or prevail against
it.
I'm going to build my church on you,
Peter, you as my apostolic, authoritative spokesman of
the gospel, you as the bearer of the
power of God and the salvation, the gospel,
you as an inspired spokesman of the risen
Christ and his gospel.
On your apostolic ministry and apostolic word, I
will build my church and the gates of
hell will not prevail against it.
Now what I want to drive home from
these verses on this first point is how
triumphant and authoritative this is.
Let this sink in.
This is the risen Christ talking here.
This is the one who took his seat
at the majesty of the right hand on
high.
This is the one who holds in being
the universe moment by moment by the word
of his power.
This is the one who will split the
skies someday and return and make all creation
his own.
Every knee will bow.
This is the Christ, the King of kings
who says, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to build my church.
So, the building of the church of Jesus
Christ from all the peoples is not ultimately
dependent on missionaries.
It is not ultimately dependent on churches.
It is not ultimately dependent on pastors.
It is ultimately dependent on one thing, Jesus'
faithfulness and power and commitment to his word.
I will build my church.
Missionaries are crucial.
Pastors are crucial.
Churches are crucial.
They are not ultimately crucial.
One person is ultimately crucial.
We are penultimately crucial.
He is ultimately crucial.
He uses us.
But if we don't get on board, he
leaves us and moves to another.
And he will get it done.
He will get it done.
I love the authority of Jesus.
It makes my spine tingle.
Even when there is no music, it makes
my spine tingle.
The Apostle Paul was very jealous that Jesus
get this glory.
So he was careful in the way he
worded his own ministry.
Listen to how he talks.
This is Romans 15, 18.
I will not presume to speak of anything
except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting
in the obedience of the Gentiles by word
and deed.
Do you hear what he is saying?
I won't speak of anything except one thing,
what Christ wrought, what Christ accomplished, the obedience
that Christ brought about, the faith that Christ
won from the peoples, and in this little,
through me.
Yes, missionaries are crucial.
Yes, pastors are crucial.
Yes, you are crucial, but not ultimately crucial.
Christ accomplishes it.
We speak the word.
He performs the word.
And if he doesn't perform it, it's dead.
There is a tremendous authority here and he
means to get the glory for it.
Matthew 28, the book ends this way.
All authority has been given to me in
heaven and on earth.
Go therefore, you missionaries, go therefore, I have
all authority, I will build my church.
Go and make disciples.
I have authority over the powers of darkness.
I have authority over the devil.
I have authority over hell.
I have authority over Hades.
I have authority over governments.
I have authority over terrorists.
Let's put a point on it.
Was Jesus Christ the King, with all authority
in heaven and on earth, building his church
on September 11 in New York?
Remember, your ways are not our ways and
your thoughts are not our thoughts.
How unsearchable are your ways, oh God, and
how inscrutable are your judgments.
What if God, the Christ, saw the planes
flying towards the destruction of thousands of people
and the upheaval of the nations?
And what if, at the same time, he
saw 200 million untouchables in the Hindu caste
system?
And what if he saw that in our
day, his centuries-long work to dislodge them
from their bondage as the Dalits of India
was about to arrive?
And what if he saw that they were
wavering between converting out of Hinduism and its
bondage to Islam or Christianity or Buddhism?
And what if he saw that the murderous
destruction of thousands of people in the name
of Islam would swing 200 million people away
from Islam toward Christianity?
Was he building his church?
What if, with a view to the everlasting
joy of millions, he did not blow his
breath against those planes like he did on
the Sea of Galilee when he said, be
still and nature obeyed?
One thing is for sure, I will build
my church.
Nothing will stop it.
That's point number one, and it's a call,
perhaps.
It's a call.
You want to be a part of something
invincible?
You want to rise up out of the
trivialities of what you do with your life,
day after day, dinking around with CDs and
putzing around with Frisbees, to do something mighty
for God in the power of the risen
Christ, so that when you lay your head
down to die, you can say, it's been
invested well, even if you died age 28.
Point number two, Christ has an unwavering commitment
to gather the church from all the peoples
of the world.
Not just westerners, not just white, not just
black, not just red, yellow, every shade, every
language, every tribe.
This is so obvious from Matthew 28, 19,
Go therefore and make disciples of all the
nations, all the peoples.
Matthew 24, 14, this gospel of the kingdom
will be preached throughout the world as a
testimony to all the nations.
Romans 15, 11, Praise the Lord all you
Gentiles, let all the peoples praise Him.
Revelation 5, 9, You were slain and by
your blood this ransom men for God, from
every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
The Lamb will have the reward of His
suffering.
He did not die in vain.
And if He died to inherit every tribe
and tongue and people and nation, the Lamb
who was slain will obtain the reward of
His suffering.
Satan cannot stop it.
Disobedient Christians cannot stop it.
Terrorists cannot stop it.
Islam and Buddhism, Hinduism, secular Americans cannot stop
it.
He's the king.
He reigns over the world.
And He will plant and build His church.
Now I have a very special burden this
morning to make this plain.
That Christ the Risen One has a burden
and a commitment and a passion and a
longing to win people from every Muslim people
group in the world.
You know, Islam is not monolithic culturally, linguistically,
nationally.
The largest Islamic country in the world is
Indonesia.
228 million people.
Sundanese, Mandurese, Malays and on and on.
Almost the entirety of North Africa, Morocco, Tunisia,
Algeria, Libya, Egypt.
Almost the entirety is Muslim.
With all those people groups.
Indian people groups, Chinese people groups, Central Asian
people groups.
Muslim, a billion of them.
Hundreds and hundreds of people groups under the
sway of Islam.
And Jesus died to rescue millions upon millions
of them from those people groups.
The reason it is such a big issue
is because of the question that was raised
by Jesus in his text.
Who do men say that the Son of
Man is?
And the reason this is so urgent for
Islam is because Islam gives the wrong answer.
In fact, it is remarkable that the answer
they give is in the text and it's
called wrong.
It's in verse 14.
They answered Jesus.
Some say that you're John the Baptist and
others you're Elijah and others Jeremiah.
Or one of the prophets.
One of the prophets.
Jesus is not just a prophet.
That's a wrong answer.
Muslims do not believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of the Living God.
They do not believe that he was crucified
and raised for our sins and that he's
the one mediator between God and man, the
man, Christ Jesus.
They do not believe that every day or
that someday every knee will bow and confess
that Jesus is Lord to the glory of
God the Father.
And therefore, Islam brings great dishonor upon Jesus
Christ because they do not ascribe the glory
to him that belongs to his divine, mediatorial,
crucified and risen, saving name.
There is one mediator between God and man,
the man, Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2.5.
There is one way, one truth, one life,
Jesus Christ and no one comes to the
Father but by him, John 14.6. He
who has the Son has life and he
who has not the Son does not have
life, 1 John 5.12. Therefore, missions is
absolutely necessary.
Why?
Because John 3.36 says, he who believes
in the Son has eternal life and he
who does not obey the Son does not
have life but the wrath of God rests
on him.
If you don't believe in Jesus as the
Son of God, you don't have life and
the wrath of God rests on you.
But how shall they believe in him who
they haven't heard?
And how shall they hear without preacher?
And how shall they preach unless they are
sent?
How beautiful are the feet of those who
bring good news.
Missionaries are crucial.
Ambassadors of the King, emissaries of the King
are crucial among the peoples of the world.
The gospel won't get there any other way
and the gospel must be known, heard and
believed in order to be saved.
These people that we call missionaries, that name
is one of the highest titles that could
be put upon a person.
People of whom the world is not worthy
no matter what they struggle with or how
they struggle.
I know missionaries in this church are very
self-effacing people.
I know that they say, don't put us
on a pedestal.
I know that they say we struggle just
like you with lust and Bible reading and
courage, just like you do.
And I know that's true and I don't
care whether it's true.
I say the name missionary is one of
the highest, most glorious titles that could ever
be put on a broken, justified sinner.
And of them the world is not worthy.
And what that means when I say the
world is not worthy of them is real
simple.
I take that text right out of Hebrews
11.
It means they're a gift to the world
and the world doesn't deserve them.
And they go anyway, just like Jesus came
anyway.
So, that's my second point.
And it's a call.
It's a call.
There's nothing very glorious about being a missionary.
It's just mainly pain.
It's mainly hurt.
It's just very Christ-like.
Very Christ-like.
Number three, last point.
Christ's radical way of winning the nations is
by the death of himself and the death
of his people.
Now, where am I getting that and what
do I mean by that?
Verse 18, first Jesus and then his people.
In the middle of the verse it says,
I will build my church and the gates
of Hades will not overpower it or prevail
against it.
What are the gates of Hades?
Hades is the place of the dead in
Jewish thought.
The gates of Hades are the gates that
hold the dead in.
If you go in and you die, it's
history.
You're done for.
The only hope would be if the gates
could be ripped off or opened.
And what Jesus is saying here is, I
will build my church and I'll build them
out of dead people.
And the gates of Hades are going to
stop me.
I'm going to open that gate and I'm
going to get the dead.
I'm going to get the dead.
Now the question is, how did he do
that?
And how do you join him in doing
that?
How do you get the bars off the
gate of death so that you can recruit
dead people to be a part of your
church?
Verse 21.
He's just made it plain that he's the
Christ, the Son of God.
All authority is his.
He's going to build his church.
And then he says, From that time, Jesus
began to show his disciples how he must
go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from
the elders and chief priests and the scribes
and be killed.
This is what Islam denies.
I read the section in the Koran last
night just to confirm it.
And I read several Islamic scholars who argue
for it.
They deny that he was killed on the
cross.
It was a substitute person who got put
up there.
The argument goes that they honor Christ more
in this way because the Christian teaching that
God would allow him to be so defiled
and so dishonored as to die the death
of a criminal is so beneath Jesus Christ
that Christians are the ones who dishonor Christ,
not Islam.
He was snuck away.
God took him into heaven.
He'll come back again someday.
He'll join with getting everybody to honor Muhammad.
This is exactly the same stumbling block that
the Jews had and the Greeks had.
Christ crucified foolishness to the Greeks and a
stumbling block to the Jews.
Why?
You cannot have a crucified Messiah.
And you know what?
If you don't have a crucified Messiah, you
don't have a gospel.
At the very point where they believe they're
rescuing Jesus from dishonor, they are perishing.
Jesus, hear this now, say this to all
your Muslim friends, Jesus endured the dishonor of
the Father, not because he was dishonorable, but
because we are dishonorable.
And the only hope for us dishonorable, sinful
people is that a perfect, risen, living, substitutionary
Christ could bear my dishonor and my sin
and my hatred and my evil and my
wickedness and then burst the bonds of Hades
and come out and by faith alone justify
me.
That's my only hope.
That's the gospel that we take to all
the Muslim peoples of the world.
Try to help them see that Christ is
not dishonored in this.
Christ is mightily honored in this.
Matthew said he's going to be killed.
You see that in verse 21?
He's going to be killed and be raised
up on the third day.
Now that's the answer to the question, how
the gates of Hades will be opened.
How does he do it?
He says, okay, there's one way into Hades.
Death, I give myself.
The keys of death and hell hang on
the inside of the door.
I will go in through death.
I will take the keys out of the
hands of Satan.
I will unlock the door.
I will push it off its bars and
I will walk out and bring my people
with me.
And it says in Revelation 1, verse 18,
the keys of death and Hades are in
his hand.
He shuts, no one can open.
He opens, no one can shut.
This is the triumphant, I will build my
church and I will build it with dead
people.
I will build it out of people who
think the iron gates of death and hell
have shut against them in this life, shut
against them in the next life and I
will bust that door off its hinges and
there will be no more death and no
more pain anymore where I reign and where
people submit to me.
And now the last question, how do you
join him?
If he builds his church by dying and
rising, how do you join him in building
the church?
He tells you in verse 24, Jesus said
to his disciples, If anyone wishes to come
after me, he must deny himself and take
up his cross and follow me.
The cross is an instrument of execution.
He is not a crabby boss at work.
If anyone wishes to come after me, he
must deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will
lose it.
And whoever loses his life for my sake
will find it.
To follow Jesus means to join him on
the Calvary road that leads to death and
then out of death.
Into death, out of death.
Whoever loses his life will find it.
Lose it, find it.
Go into death, come out of death.
Lose it, find it.
Die so you can live.
Here's the way Paul put it.
This is Galatians 2.20. I am crucified
with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but
Christ who lives in me.
And the life I now live in the
flesh, I live by faith in the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself
for me.
You've got to die.
I am crucified with Christ.
You've got to die.
Nobody can come after me unless he takes
up his cross and follows me.
Try to save your life?
You lose it.
And he goes on to argue, what will
it profit you if you gain the whole
world and lose your life?
In other words, if you say, I don't
want to do that because if I do
that, then I won't be able to gain
all this stuff.
I mean, if I go, if I be
a missionary or if I give too much
away to support missionaries, I can't have all
this stuff.
He says, well, what are you going to
do with that stuff?
What will a man give in exchange for
his life?
God doesn't trade.
You can't get your life with stuff.
You get your life one way, lose it.
In the service of Jesus.
And I don't think that means everybody should
go.
I said it once, I say it now,
I'll say it one more time in a
minute.
There's a losing of life that keeps you
right in the business where you are.
Freed from the need for the stuff.
Let it go.
And then we could send them all.
We could send them all.
You know what?
The Calvary Road looks like in America is
no easy question.
Is it?
What does the Calvary Road look like in
Disneyland?
Well, we're not legalists here.
I don't give lists.
I just say it's a hard road.
It's a dangerous road.
It's a bold road.
So Christ died to save His church.
And He calls His people to die to
save His church.
To find His church.
To gather His church.
Whoever loses his life for my sake and
the Gospels will find it.
And they will bring others through the gates
of death into life with them.
Amen.
Now, here's what I want us to do
as we close.
Hear the people that I want to come.
Number one, if you came into this room
knowing you're called to cross a culture to
missions.
I'm just thinking about people on the front
end of the call.
You came in deeply assured that's where God
is leading you.
You're not there yet, but you're going.
You come.
Amen.
The second group are people who came thinking
that was probably the case, but not sure.
And you've heard more of a confirming churning
in your heart right now.
You come.
And then the other group, and this may
be the largest group, I don't know.
People who are not sure, but what's happened
in this service is a remarkable awakening of
a sense that God wants you to very
seriously consider the likelihood that you should leave
the plan or leave the place and go
to some unreached people when you get the
necessary training.
And the reason for having you come is
so that you can say that out loud
and then I can pray for you that
God would confirm that or not.
So just come right now.
Just come on up from wherever you're sitting
and line up across the front here from
wherever you are.
I'll just wait a minute and then I'll
pray for you and we'll be done.
And notice how we'd love to help follow
up here.
We want to pray with you.
We want to work with you.
We want to do ever we can do
to get you from where you are to
where God wants you to be.
And I know some of you standing here
are just not sure.
You just sense a real sense of urgency
that this could be your life's calling.
And I want to ask God to make
that clear or not.
And those of you, I'm assuming that the
people who are sitting out there now are
either bent on being good senders or you're
disobedient.
Because those are the only three options.
You can be a goer, you can be
a sender, or you can be disobedient.
No bystanders, no spectators, just goers, senders, or
disobedient.
And it's a good thing to be a
sender at home working hard at your job
and it's a good thing to be a
goer.
So no second class citizens.
Although I do betray my prejudice that the
name missionary is about as high a name
as you can put on a human being
with all their struggles and all their imperfections.
I love them very much.
And so let me pray.
Oh God in heaven, look down upon these
folks right here.
For some of them this is a trembling
moment of what am I doing here?
For others it's the consummation of years of
prayer and a deep solidified sense of call.
And then for others all over the map
in between.
So what we're praying, I'm voicing and the
people, the senders are praying, is confirm oh
God.
Confirm your work in these people's lives.
Solidify the sense of call.
Give clarity to what the next steps should
be.
If it's ten years, I remember Oscar saying
when he came to Bethlehem in 1985 he
thought I'm going to come here, I'm going
to get trained, I'm going to go out,
be out here in a year or two.
And then it was ten years before Oscar
went.
And now he's gone.
So Lord it may be ten years.
But Lord whatever it takes, keep them on
the track.
Oh forbid Lord that the world would choke
out their sense of calling.
Surround them with other believers Lord who burn
inside for the glory of Christ among the
nations.
Purify their lives of sin.
Give them some victory Lord over the sins
they think are unfitting them for the field.
Help them to know that we're strugglers all
on the field, off the field.
And grant I pray oh God that you
would fill them with your Holy Spirit right
now.
Give them gifts and give them graces that
they need to follow through with your call
on their life and become fruitful emissaries of
the gospel of grace among the nations.
Thank you for listening to this message by
John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist
Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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