Seeds for 10/12/2023 - Matthew 16:17-20
Scripture: Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And 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.” Then He ordered His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Messiah.
Observation: In Jesus’ first sentence, He makes a distinction between sources of insight and where a declaration this on point would have to come from.
“[F]or this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.”
There is only so far that human reason can take us. God has endowed us with amazing ability. We have peered at the vast night sky and the beauty of the stars. We have pondered life and creation, wondering why there is something rather than nothing. We have considered our convictions about the existence of a real, objective right and wrong, recognizing that those concepts are strictly meaningless without a real, objective standard against which they may be measured. Yes, reason can recognize how much more sense the world makes if some Divine Mind or Being or Something is behind it all.
But that is a far cry from a spiritual insight like Peter’s revelation about Jesus’ messianic identity. That a specific god—the God of the Jews, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—would send a long-promised savior and king to deliver His people? That requires divine work.
For Wesleyan/Methodist Christians (like me), the concept of prevenient grace helps make sense of Jesus’s words. Prevenient grace is “the grace that comes before” our profession of faith in Christ. It’s an acknowledgement that God is at work in myriad ways to draw us to Himself and enable us to come to a profession of faith in Him, if we will participate with that grace at work in our lives. This can be ordinary, mystical, or a combination of both. Some person of influence—a Sunday School teacher, a friend, a relative, a co-worker—makes an impact on us and we open ourselves to the possibility of the God of the Bible. Some encounter with the Holy Spirit in prayer, scripture, worship, or service dazzles us and we are changed.
Jesus affirms Peter’s acknowledgement of Him as the Son of God. Peter does not yet understand the full implications of that confession. But the same grace that brought him this far will continue the work soon enough.
Application:
What influences and experiences has God used in your life to provide you with greater insight into Him?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, help me participate with the grace you give through the power of your Word and the work of your Holy Spirit, that I may grow in grace, knowledge, and faithfulness. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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