15th July 2026

15th July 2026


Pray (ACts)


Read (Matthew 16:13-20 focus v17-19)


Message (Alan Burke)


I just looked out the window, blue skies, it looks lovely. I don’t see a cloud in sight, but you know I think it’s going to rain. I’ve a few visits to do today, so I’ve got my umbrella sitting in the car at the passenger seat, and I’m going to bring my raincoat and hope that between the showers I don’t get soaked. Now I’m being a little facetious. I’m sitting here writing this devotion days before it’s due to be posted, and it’s a scorcher out there, and the forecast for when this devotion is to be posted is for another scorcher. So maybe my opening didn’t work, and the forecast was wrong, and it’s lashing out there, but even so, you get the idea. If I believe it’s going to rain, it’s going to impact how I live. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, then it should impact your entire life. All of it, just like it impacts how you dress and what you do if it’s going to lash outside or if it’s going to be another scorcher. To Peter’s confession, Jesus responds by telling Peter he is blessed. 


Peter was blessed because the understanding of the true identity of Jesus, albeit limited, was due to divine revelation. It was the Father who had revealed who Jesus was to him. The understanding he had, along with the other disciples, had come because of God’s grace. The Father had revealed it to Peter. It is the Father who had given understanding of the truth of who Jesus was and is. None of it came from his own wisdom; his understanding came from the Father. Just as our understanding of the things of God does not come from our own wisdom, it comes from God’s work within us by the Holy Spirit. 


Jesus continues by saying: “ I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Now there is a lot going on in here, and in it there are some wonderful truths and comforts for us here as the church. For the Lord is building his church. Now there has been a lot of ink spilled on this verse to argue for the bishop of Rome. The context though helps us; it makes it clear that Jesus is speaking of the disciples as a whole; it is they whom Jesus has been speaking to even though it is Peter who has answered on their behalf. Yet the wider teaching of Scripture points us elsewhere. Christ is the foundation of His church, and the apostles together form the foundation upon which Christ builds (Eph 2:20). Peter is significant, but the focus here is not Peter's supremacy. The focus is Christ's promise: "I will build my church.”


It is Christ who builds his church. What a wonderful assurance that is for us. Who builds the church, it’s not Peter, it’s not the apostles, it’s not the minister, it isn’t the programmes we have, it is Jesus who builds his church. The same church that was founded, not at Pentecost but there in the midst of the fall, for the church is as old as Adam and Eve. The word for Church comes from the Greek literally is ecclesia, meaning assembly. The Greek word equates to the Hebrew word for “community” in the Old Testament. The existence of the Church has been the community of God’s people who live by faith throughout the ages, an assembly of God’s people that Christ is building and nothing will prevent that. This is good news and we can take great comfort in today’s day and age because even if it seems that more and more meetinghouses are lying empty, our Saviour is building his church. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q13 Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?
A. Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.
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