Someone once said that we live in a "snowball age." Take a small snowball, start to roll it down a hill. It begins slowly, but as it moves it picks up snow and gets bigger. As it gets bigger, it moves faster and picks up more snow. Bigger, faster, more snow. Bigger, faster, more snow.
Bigger... faster...........
We live in a "snowball age."

A few years ago people were saying with amazement that in the last 50 years we have had more scientific advancement than over all previous human history.
The rate of development continues to advance even more quickly today.
It is said by those in the know that the amount of available information in our society doubles every 90 days... or less.
That's the snowball age.

Socially, our Canadian culture is undergoing dramatic shifts. Not only are we becoming ever more cosmopolitan and urban, we are also settling very definitely into a post-modern age, where basic assumptions about the dependability and trustworthiness of central institutions like church and government are gone, science and reasoned education are no longer the hallowed super-fix for the human race, and reliable social norms - fences of decency and acceptable behaviour are demolished everywhere. Truth is a "whatever" concept:
whatever works or whatever you feel: that's truth for you.... nothing more.

It is a time in our history when, it seems, everything is up for grabs.
It is a time of terrible uncertainty.
And, in recent weeks, a time of fear.
OC Transpo; Taber and Littleton - threats of repeats here at Confed High.

The Church is caught up in all of this turmoil.
We as individual believers are caught up in it as well.

What we thought was a rock-solid foundation of Canadian Society now is turning out to be a shifting mass of quicksand. Along with rejecting many social institutions, people today are taking a hard second look at the Church, at Christianity, and often rejecting it as any sort of viable spiritual alternative.
 
 
 
 

When you thought you were living safely in a Christian land, where the Church was secure and appreciated, where Christian principles undergirded even the laws of the land, where your Christian faith was the norm and where it was respected;
when you thought it was a great place to raise your children, and enjoy your grandchildren,
Suddenly you see all this vanish.

We are left facing a snowballing future, wondering what to make of it all.
As Christians and members of the Church, how are we supposed to respond?
Is the future all black and desperate for followers of Jesus Christ?
Is there anything that we can count on?
Or do we just have to stand by and watch while Christianity crumbles and disappears into the dust with a quiet whimper?

Hear today, in our snowball-like age,
hear today the words of Jesus Christ:
"...on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." (v.18)

Let's reflect on those words together.
 
 

"I," says Jesus, "will build my Church."

There are a lot of influential people in this world. And those people make important decisions that affect the lives of so many of us. In government and industry, in social circles - even informally -- powerful people. How they think, what they feel, where they go is important.

But none of these are as important, and none of these are as influential as the one who said he would build the Church -- Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
It was he who was present with the building of the Cosmos in the first days of creation.
John 1:3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
 
 

It was he who came into this world for a showdown with the hosts of Sin and Evil, with the Prince of Evil himself. He endured the agonies of hell alone, he sank deep into death --3 days in the tomb -- but had power enough to be raised the Champion, Alive, the Victor over Death.
No power could stop him.
No power is greater.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead. History is moving towards that day when all things in heaven and on earth will be brought together under Him [Eph 1.10].

It is THIS one who said with certainty -
I will build my church.

"I WILL build my Church" He said.
Some of the greatest discoveries in science, some of the most important advances in history were the result of flukes - people stumbling onto them.

But the greatest advance in history is no fluke. The work of the most important figure in time is careful, controlled, intentional. Jesus Christ deliberately is moving time forward through time towards the end of time, towards the day when he will return as he promised -
"Behold, I am coming soon!" [Rev 22.12]

From the very early chapters of human history, right at the beginning, when Adam and Eve fell into sin in the garden of Paradise, the promise was made by God that a Saviour would be born.
Throughout the history of humanity, God kept working towards the completion of that promise. Deliberately, steadily, moving forward.
Jesus came.
He sent his Spirit.
Pentecost. An intentional, goal-oriented event.

Even as we see the remains of a supposedly Christian society collapse around our ears, as Christendom returns to the dust, as we wonder about the future of the Church, about the freedom to practice our faith, about the society in which our children will be raised and the moral influences to which they will be exposed, let's never despair that we are abandoned. Or that - to put it in somewhat base human terms - our Lord has gone on vacation.

The deliberate road of human history from Genesis to Calvary to the second coming and Judgement Day is one down which our Lord will bring us.

"I WILL build my church."
 
 

"I will BUILD my Church."
One thing about the Church of Jesus Christ - it will be built up. It will grow. It will continue to grow until the return of our Lord.

There will be quantitative growth - continued additions to the number of those being saved.
Jesus said, speaking in parable language:
"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep.... I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd." [John 10.14,16]
 

There will be qualitative growth - deeper, richer quality; continued growth within those who have been saved -- growth in their hearts and minds, growth in faith and service.
Ephesians 4 speaks of God's people being built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature....

"I will build my Church."
 
 

"I will build MY Church."
That's something we have to keep very firmly in mind. The Church is HIS possession, not ours. The Bible speaks again and again about the Church being "The Body of Christ" [Rom.; 1 Cor. 12; Eph. 4] -- not our body.
Jesus Christ is the head, the source of all knowledge, the nerve centre of the body, the impulse of all life - the one who guides and directs and controls.
We were bought with a price; we are not our own [1 Cor. 6.20; 7.23]. We belong, body and soul, in life and in death to our faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.

So, as we face a culture undergoing tremendous shifts; as we wonder about future possibilities for this institution called The Church, we must strive to avoid succumbing to the very easy temptation of confusing our values with the values of Christ, our desires with his desires, our traditions with his, our longings with his, our hopes and dreams with his hopes and dreams.

We have to be willing to let go of our future and allow him to have his sway; to relinquish control to Him. For only then is there any certainty, any hope, any positive outcome for the future.

"I will build MY Church."
 
 

"I will build my CHURCH."
The greek word used here makes absolutely no reference to a formal structure or a building. Rather it is a word that carries on an Old Testament image of a developing community, a new community, an alternative community, a trend-setting community of Good News, a gospel community - a community of light in the midst of darkness; a community of hope in the midst of despair; a community of certainty in the midst of confusion; a community of sons and daughters of God in a world where people have lost their spiritual moorings; of life in the midst of death.

An acquaintance of mine grew up in the corn fields of Iowa. His father was a County Extension Agent working for some of the seed companies and farm dealers. It was his job to convince local farmers of the benefits of using this technology. He knew that they would instinctively turn him away. And so, come spring he would quietly till the soil in demonstration plots placed strategically along the highway. Come fall, all the locals would discover that his strange ways and seed produced better yield that theirs. Pretty soon they, too, would be using this new technology.
We in the Church are God's Extension Agents. We are his Demonstration Plots before the world -- the gathered community of imperfect people living with a perfect salvation and the vision of a glorious eternity before us. We are placed here by Jesus in order to help the world see a new reality that is at hand - the reality of the Kingdom of God; the reality of a living Saviour.

"I... WILL... BUILD... MY... CHURCH...."
 
 

He will build his church, his demonstration plot in a mixed-up, snowball-like world. And he will build it on a rock -- the rock that is the confession and the faith demonstrated by Peter:
Looking Jesus square in the face and saying, "you are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matt. 16.16)

It is one thing for us to gather here and be reminded of the great declaration which Jesus made regarding the Church -- a promise that gives hope and security in a snowball world.
It is quite another thing to be a part of that promise, to be a part of that Church, to be a child of God, to be a member of his family, loved by him, protected by him.

That comes, that can ONLY come when each of us individually and deliberately join Peter in submitting our lives to Jesus - making Him our Master, placing our trust for life and death in Him, making him the centrepiece of our existence. If you have done that, then your future is secure.
If you haven't deliberately done that, then all the years of church membership, all the dollars given, all the activities amount to nothing. As far as the future goes, you are on your own.

If you HAVE made the confession of Peter, then hear also these words -
"on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

Satan has come to this earth with the intention of plundering it. He has set up shop here with his distorted values, evil intentions, and horrid schemings. He wants the earth to be his kingdom.

But Jesus Christ has come. He has set up his New Community, his demonstration plot - a Kingdom community of those who have snubbed Satan and given their lives to Jesus. And that community, led by Him, will grow, will move, will be on the offensive against Satan.
Satan has set up his defences - he has barred his gates, like Hitler so many years ago built a fortress across Europe, thinking himself invincible.

Says Jesus - those gates won't last. My Kingdom community, my Church, is on the offensive and WILL conquer!

Yes there may be setbacks. There will be times of pain. There will be localized times when it seems that all is lost.
But not so.
The gates of Hades will NOT prevail. In the end
in the final end,
they will be totally defeated.

With that in mind, fellow believers, we can go back to our snowball-like society.
We can go back with confidence.
Oh, we are not guaranteed a shelter from the storms of life, nor immunity from the struggles. We are not told that in the Church we can conveniently be hidden away from the convulsions of society.
In fact, quite the opposite. We are called to go right out into the middle of that world.
But in the midst of it - in that world - we can have confidence. As we wade down into the cavern of life, our lifeline is securely in the hands of the Good Shepherd. As we engage in spiritual warfare, the Commander-In-Chief of our forces is still the strongest. As we walk towards a future that is shrouded in mystery, we know that the one who holds all time in his hand, holds us too.

I... WILL... BUILD... MY... CHURCH....