Peter. John 1 verse 40 says,
One of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew,
Simon Peter's brother. And he first findeth his own
brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messiah,
which is being interpreted the Christ. And he brought him to
Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he
said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jonah, thou shalt be called
Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone. So the Lord made himself
known to Andrew, called him to himself, and so the first thing
Andrew did was run to his brother and tell him the good news. And
his news to his brother Peter was, we have found the Messiah,
which is being interpreted the Christ. The Lord Jesus is God's
anointed who makes His people witnesses unto Him. And through
His witnesses, He calls us to Himself and plants us, establishes
us on the one foundation, on Christ Himself. The whole work
is His. He calls the witness. He makes
Him a witness. He sends Him forth to bear witness.
He makes the witness effectual, He brings His lost sheep to Him,
and He sets the lost sheep on Himself, on Christ the Rock.
And that's our subject, Christ the Rock. The reason I titled
it Christ the Rock is because those are the two things we have
spoken of here, Christ and the Rock. Now, Messiah and Christ
mean the same thing. It means The Lord Jesus is God's
anointed. That's what the word means, anointed. Before the foundation of the
world, before He made anything, God the Father set His Son apart,
chose Him to be the head of His church, to be the prophet, the
priest, the king, to be the savior, to be the salvation, the righteousness,
the hope, to be everything to His people. To glorify God's
name, in the salvation of a chosen people. That's what God the Father
sent His Son to do. That's why Proverbs 8.22 says
it's Christ speaking there as wisdom and He says, The Lord
possessed me in the beginning of His way before His works of
old. I was set up from everlasting
from the beginning or ever the earth was. Everything began with
God choosing His Son. As far as our salvation and the
purpose of this world It was to exalt God's Son. That was
the purpose. That was the purpose. And through
the prophets, as God made the world, and Adam fell in sin,
and then God began sending his messengers, all through the prophets,
the law of the prophets, God was preaching, the Messiah is
coming, the Christ is coming, my anointed is coming. That's
what Daniel said, 70 weeks are determined upon thy people and
upon thy holy city. And he declared what Christ would
do. He'd finish the transgression. That's what he did. He would
make an end of sins. He did that. Do you realize,
believer, before God, we don't have any sins? We don't have
any sins. What news is that to us? That's grace. That's grace. We don't have any
sins before God. He came to make reconciliation
for iniquity. To reconcile us to God. To bring
in everlasting righteousness. Everlasting righteousness. To
seal up the vision and the prophecy. To fulfill all the law and the
prophets. And to anoint the most holy.
And that's Christ first and foremost. He's the most holy. He's the
holy high one. And he's God's anointed. And
so it's said that The Messiah, the Prince, shall come, and the
streets shall be built again, and the walls shall be built
again, and even in troublous times, He came and accomplished
the work of building up His city, His holy city, His holy church,
His kingdom. That's the picture. And it said
He would do it by the Messiah being cut off, but not for Himself. cut off for his people on the
cross. And that's how he started building up everything for his
people. So in time, here he comes. Now
he's come forth, made of a woman, likened to his brethren and He
used John to preach him, and John was preaching what Isaiah
preached. Behold, God said, behold my servant,
whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased,
I'll put my spirit upon him. And that's what anointed me,
to have the spirit of God. He was anointed with the spirit
of God. Turn over to Acts 10, and I want you to see this. Acts 10, 36. The word which God sent unto
the children of Israel preaching peace by Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all. That word
I say you know which was published throughout all Judea began from
Galilee after the baptism which John preached. And we're looking
at John the Baptist. We saw how he baptized the Lord
Jesus. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Ghost and with power. The Spirit descended upon
him like a dove. That was when we see him anointed
of the Spirit. God's declaring this is the Christ,
this is the Messiah, this is my anointed. And he went about
doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil for
God was with him, God was in him. And we're his witnesses
of all things, which he did both in the land of the Jews and in
Jerusalem whom they slew and hanged on a tree. We're his witnesses
because he's anointed us. Him God raised up the third day
and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses
chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with
Him after He rose from the dead. And He commanded us to preach
unto the people and testify that it is He which was ordained of
God to be the judge of the quick and dead. He's the anointed. To Him give all the prophets
witness. And here's the witness. This
is the witness. Here's our witness. Through his
name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of
sin. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and your sins will be gone. God. Declare all your sins put
away. So he's the Messiah. He's the
anointed of God. He finished the work the Father
gave him to do. Our Lord Jesus put away the sin
of his people. He brought in everlasting righteousness
for his people. He fulfilled the law, established
it for his people. So that in Christ we are complete,
brethren. There is nothing to be added.
Nothing to be added. and he's our prophet, priest,
and king. Men tried to stop this. They said, the kings of the earth
set themselves, and the rulers take counsel, and they say, let
us break his bands asunder. But God just laughs, because
he said, I've set my king in my holy hill of Zion. Everybody
heard the announcement yesterday that supposedly we have a new
president, but the rule hasn't changed. Christ is the King. He was the King before last week
and He's still the King. And everything that's happening
in your life and in my life is by His direct hand. Everything. It's been this way from the beginning. So Christ made Andrew a witness. He made him a witness. So Andrew
does the most loving thing one sinner can do for another. We
read in verse 42, he brought him to Jesus. He brought him
to Jesus. The Lord Jesus anoints his people
so that we know him. He gives us the spirit. You have
an auction from the Holy One and you know all things. If the
anointing is in you, you know Christ is all. And if you know
Christ is all, you know you can't help another sinner. Andrew didn't
go there and try to convince Peter on his own, he said, come,
come to Christ. Come where He's at. I want you
to come and hear Him. I want you to come meet Him.
And when the Lord has made you a witness, it says, he that believeth
on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. That's how we believe.
He's given us that unction. He's anointed us with the Spirit.
And He makes you believe. And then you began to want others
to believe. When he shed the love of God
abroad in your heart, you know what you want? You want other
sinners to know Christ. You want other sinners to hear
of Christ. That's what it does. You know,
I can remember when God first revealed Christ in me and I was
so excited to want to tell my friends and my family. And I
can remember a friend saying to me, if I believed the gospel
you believed, I wouldn't preach the gospel. And I knew that wasn't
so because I believed the gospel and I wanted others to hear the
gospel. But what they meant was, if I
believe God chose a people and predestinated a people, that
Christ came and he laid down his life only for that elect
people, and those are the only ones he's calling out, and they're
going to be called out, they're going to be saved, none's going
to perish. They say, if I believe that, I wouldn't even witness
to people. That's not so if the love of
God is shared abroad in your heart. You want others to know
about Christ. You want to teach others Christ.
You want them to know Christ. You can't love brethren unless
the love of God's in your heart. You can learn doctrine, you can
learn theology and be as cold and mean as a snake when you're
crossed. But if the love of God's in your
heart, God's gonna, he gonna break our hearts and he keeps
our hearts broken. He keeps us contrite at His feet.
Oh, you've got an old man of flesh that will rise up, but
you know what? The Lord's not going to let His
child go on in that. He's going to break your heart.
And that love with which He's broken your heart makes you want
others to hear the gospel. Christ becomes more important
than you. And that has to be the case before
we'll bear witness to Christ because Because until then, you
know what happens? We're ashamed to tell somebody
else about Christ. Oh, they're not going to believe.
And people not believing you over time will make you start
going, well, there's no point telling them. They're not going
to believe. Well, they're not if you don't tell them. But you just cast the bread upon
the water. Speak the truth. God just might
call them. They might be one of His. That's
happened before. I've seen that happen before
with people that I didn't think they would believe. Nobody else
was believing but I spoke to them and the Lord brought them
to hear the gospel and saved them. Paul preached that It's
not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that shows mercy. He preached divine election.
But you know what Paul's heart was? He said, brethren, my heart's
desire and prayer for Israel is that it might be saved. That's
the heart he gives you. He makes you a witness. We can't
bring someone directly to Christ like Andrew did. The Lord Jesus
is not here in bodily presence. So we can't just bring somebody
to Christ like he did. What can we do though? We can
bring them to where the gospel is preached, to where the Lord
says He's going to save His people. It pleased God through the foolishness
of preaching to save them, I believe. This is how He's going to save
His people. You can bring them to hear the gospel. And here's
the thing, not everybody you ask is going to be willing to
come hear the gospel. Not even willing to come take a listen.
But what about those that do? Where did that willingness come
from? It's all of Christ. If he gives you a heart to speak
that initial word to a neighbor or a loved one and gives you
the boldness to just simply say, why don't you come out and hear
the gospel preached? If you have the boldness to do
that, Christ gave you that. And if that person hears you
say that and says, you know what? I'm coming to here. I'm going
to come here. Where did that willingness come
from? It came from the Lord. And when you, they hear the gospel
and they're made willing and they start believing, that's
of the Lord. Everything about, He works all this together. When
we talk about the preaching of the gospel, He's going to, He
may find you in a false church where the law is preached, and
He's not going to save you through a lie. He's not going to do it,
but He's going to cross your path with somebody that He sent
is preaching the truth. And He may go through a long
process and mysterious process, but He is going to get you under
the preaching of the Gospel. And every step along the way
was the Lord. It was grace going before grace. It was prevenient grace bringing
you to the place where He would reveal Christ in you. This is
what He has called us for. You know, He talks about laying
down our lives. You lay down your lives brethren.
You that believe, you lay down your lives. You sacrifice to have the gospel,
where we can have the gospel preached. And that's love toward
one another, to be where we can have the gospel of Christ preached.
This is the children's bread. We have to have the gospel. And
that's true love, when He gives you a heart to want to follow
Him and to bear witness of Him. and to be under the preaching
of the gospel and to have others brought under the sound of the
gospel. That's what he's doing. That's why he sets up the church
like this. This is how he's going to call
out his people. So then let's see now how Christ
reveals himself to the apostle Peter. Look at verse 43. It says, I'm sorry, verse 42. He brought
him to Jesus. When Jesus beheld him, he said,
and the Lord looked upon him, and he said, Thou art Simon the
son of Jonah. Thou shalt be called Cephas,
which is by interpretation, a stone. Now, in another place, we're
told that Andrew and Peter were working on their nets. And this
goes together, I don't know exactly what the sequence was, when what
came first, or if it all happened at the same time. But they were
working on their nets. And the Lord came and He said,
follow me. I will make you fishers of men. And that word went forth with
power. And you know what they did? They
left their occupation. They left their livelihood. They
left their nets. They left their fishing boat.
And they followed Christ. They followed Him. When the Lord
calls you, he'll call you affectionately and you will follow him. If he
calls you to be a minister, a preacher of the gospel, he will do it
so affectionately. It's not an endeavor that you
just set out to do. He will make it to you to where
in your heart there's nothing else you have a heart to do. There's nothing else that you
could do. You have to preach the gospel. He'll make you leave
the occupation and go after Him. But He does that with all of
us. Because when He makes you a witness,
He makes you leave every false refuge and follow Him and begin
speaking of Him to people. He calls in power. He calls in
power. Now, we see the Lord's omniscience
here in our text. He knew Peter. He knew everything
about him. Before he'd ever been introduced
to him or met him, he beheld him. That means he looked on
him first. And the Lord said, you're Simon Bar-Jonah, Simon
son of Jonah. He knew it. He had to know him. The Lord wrote our names in the
Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world. He's
the Lamb. And he knows this one. He knows the one that's coming.
All the Father giveth to me shall come to me. And here comes one. And he says, ah, I know you.
I know you. Known him from eternity. Entered
into covenant with the Father from eternity to save him. He
knew him. He said, I know my sheep. I know
my sheep. He knows everything about us.
And he knew Peter's sin nature. He knew Peter's sin nature. He
knew who he was. He knew his impetuousness. He
knew that he would be bold naturally, and he knew he'd be weak naturally,
because he's a sinner. He knew he'd be a coward by nature
at times. The Lord Jesus knows we're sinners.
He knows we're dust. He came to make us a new creation. And when the Lord calls us, He's
going to make all things new. And he shows us this here by
giving Peter a new name. That's what we're seeing here.
It shows the authority of the giver, the authority of Christ.
He had the authority to make Peter a new creation. You remember
when Christ gave Jacob a new name? Jacob was wrestling with
him that night and the Lord gave him a new name. He said, you
shall be called Israel. That's Christ's name. It means
as a prince thou has power with God and has prevailed. That's Christ's name. Christ
is the prince. He's the prince who had power
with God through his precious blood laying down his life in
the place of his people and he prevailed with God. His intercession
prevailed with God. And that's the name he gave Jacob.
And not only did he give him the name that revealed what he
did for Jacob, he gave him a name that revealed what he did in
Jacob. You remember that night, Jacob's
wrestling and he's wrestling with the Lord and he's trying
to, he's wrestling in his natural strength trying to get a blessing
from the Lord. And the Lord saw Jacob was not
prevailing. You can't prevail in the strength
of your flesh. So what did the Lord do? He touched
Jacob's thigh and put his thigh out of joint. So Jacob could
not wrestle in his own strength anymore. And that's what he has
to break our heart, our stony heart so that we stop wrestling
in the strength of our sinful flesh. And he make you submit
to God, make you bow to the Lord. And so Jacob held on to Christ
and he just begged him for a blessing. He begged him to have mercy on
him. And that's how he prevailed. Who made him prevail? Christ
made him prevail. If you're going to prevail with
God, it's not going to be the power of your strong prayer by
which you convince God to do something you want to do. It's
going to be that the Lord came and broke your heart and brought
you to pray aright and say, Lord, have mercy on me. I can't do anything. I need mercy. And when he does that work in
you, you know what? For the believer, we don't ever
stop begging God for mercy. Don't you find you just... That's
the common plea that we have to our Father all the time. Lord,
please have mercy on me. Please have mercy. But in giving
that name, he showed what he did for Jacob and in Jacob. And
that's what he's doing here with Apostle Peter. He gave Peter
this name, and this is Christ's name. That's Christ's name he gave
him. Cephas means a stone. He gave him his name. Christ
declared Peter's salvation by that name. He declared how he
gave him a new nature by that name. He declared what he did
for Peter and in Peter by saying, your name now is Cephas, a stone. Christ is a stone. He's the stone,
He's the foundation, the one foundation. And what does He
do? That's what He did for His people.
He established us on a rock, on Him, by His blood and His
righteousness, putting away our sin, making us accepted with
God, so we're settled on the rock. And then what does He do
in us? He comes and by His Spirit in
you, we're made living stones. And He sets us on Christ the
rock. He's telling Peter just what he did with Jacob. He showed
Jacob, you're Israel. And he said, that's my name.
I did all this for you. I did it for you and in you.
And he says to Peter, now your name is gonna be Cephas. That's
my name, the Lord said. I'm the rock. I'm the one who
am the rock by my blood for you. And I'm the rock by my blood
in you, making you a living stone. Let's see that. Let's see that in 1 Peter. You know what the thing is, remember
the Lord told Peter, he said, upon this rock will I build my
church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
That verse, the papacy takes that and they make Peter to be
the first pope and exalt him like he's something, like an
extra special person. But Peter was a sinner just like
you and me. The Lord told Peter, he objected to the Lord when
the Lord said, Peter, you're going to deny me. It's written
you're going to deny me. Peter, no, I'm not. He's just
a sinner like us. And then to try to prove to the
Lord he'd stand with him, he took out that sword and tried
to kill that soldier. And then he, what did he do?
He denied the Lord three times. He denied the Lord of life. And not only that, he left and
went fishing. Peter was gone. He went back to his livelihood. So who's the rock? Is it Peter
or is it Christ? Christ came and he saved him
from that. Look here, Peter preached that.
Look at what Peter preached. First Peter 2.4, to whom coming? unto a living stone. Christ is
the rock, a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of
God and precious. And that's what our Lord, when
he made Peter's name to be Cephas, a stone, he was saying, Peter,
I'm giving you my name. I'm the foundation. I'm the stone.
Now you're established on the rock. And here's what he did
in Peter. Peter says, you also as lively
stones, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, God's
temple. You're a holy priesthood to offer
up spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God by Jesus
Christ. Wherefore it's contained in the
scripture, behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone. elect and
precious. That's Christ the stone. He that
believeth on him shall not be confounded. He'll never be confused
and ashamed. Unto you therefore which believe,
he is precious. He's the stone. We're not going
to say Peter's the stone. Peter was, he was greatly used
of the Lord. We're thankful how the Lord used
him. But where was Peter's foundation? It was Christ. And what made
Peter a living stone? Christ did. And Christ built
him up. into the house. But to them which
be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the
same made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and
a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word being
disobedient, whereunto they were appointed." Paul said in Ephesians
2.9, you're built You're built. It doesn't say you build. You
are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
The same foundation they're built on, we're built on. Paul said,
nope, there's one foundation. A man can't lay any other foundation.
What is it? Jesus Christ himself being a
cheap cornerstone. In whom? in Christ all the buildings
fitly framed together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord
in whom you're built together for a habitation of God through
the Spirit. He's the rock, the foundation
and He goes forth sending forth His witnesses and just like He's
the anointed, the one anointed with the Spirit without measure,
He anoints His child. Giving you the unction, making
you know He's everything. And He changes everything about
you. He makes you stop looking to yourself for salvation. He
plants you on Christ the Rock. And He did it by making you a
living stone within. Making you alive, making you
a new creature. And then, from then on, you're
going to be His witness. I want to show you one other
thing. I want you to go over to Acts 4, and we'll end with
this. Let me just read this to you,
but you know the Lord, when he told Peter that that time, he
said, upon this rock will I build. Who does the building? Christ
said, upon this rock will I build. He's the builder. Peter said,
you are living stones built up a spiritual house. The Lord said,
upon this rock will I build my church. It's his church. All the stones in this, that's
going to make up this building, all his elect, he bought them.
Just like if you bought all the materials for a house, they're
yours once you pay the price. He bought these living stone.
And he makes them alive and he builds them up. And he said,
and when I send you forth as witnesses, the gates of hell
shall not prevail against my church. You know what that means,
it would be like if you have a church over here that's a false
church and nobody's preaching the gospel, they're preaching
works. And it's the devil has that place surrounded with gates.
He doesn't want you getting in there, he doesn't want you disrupting
what he's got going there because he's fooling people, he's deceiving
people in their religion. But the Lord says, the gates
of the devil is not going to prevent me to send my gospel
in and call my people out. Now who's going to do that? Who
has the power to do that? Only the Lord Jesus Christ does.
You see what I'm saying? It's His church. He does the
building. He makes it effectual and powerful,
penetrating the gates of hell. And He builds us on Him as the
rock. and He anoints us and makes us
alive and makes us living stones and He builds us up. And we see
that here. Listen to Acts 4, 7. Peter had healed this man
at the gate called Beautiful. He said, In the name of the Lord
Jesus, this man is healed. And the Lord used it, watch this,
the Lord used it to give Peter an entrance before the rulers
and the chief priests and a whole bunch of people that Peter would
not have got to preach before if this hadn't happened. And
listen to this, verse 7, when they had set them in the midst,
Peter and the others, they asked, by what power, by what name have
you done this? We're talking about who is it
that builds the church? Who is it that's the rock? Who
makes us be able to penetrate the gates of hell and make the
gates of hell not prevail against us? Who's able to bring his lost
people out? Who is it? Peter, filled with
the Holy Ghost, said unto them, ye rulers of the people and elders
of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done
to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole, be it
known unto you all and to all the people of Israel, that by
the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, You want to make sure they knew
who he was talking about. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom
you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him, by
Him does this man stand here before you whole. This is the
stone. This is the rock which was set
at naught of you builders. This is the foundation and you
rejected him, Peter said, which has become the headstone of the
corner. Neither is there salvation in
any other for there's none other name under heaven given among
men whereby we must be saved. Did Peter preach that he was
the rock or did he preach Christ was the rock? Peter said Christ
is the stone. He's the foundation. And look
what happened back up at verse 4. Did Christ penetrate the gates
of hell through that whole process, through everything that took
place with that impotent man? Verse 4 says, Howbeit many of
them which heard the word believed, and the number of the men was
about five thousand. The Lord doesn't fail. He doesn't
fail. Now here's what I'll try to show
you. The Lord Jesus, He's the Messiah. He's the Christ. He's
God's anointed prophet, priest, and king, and head of His church.
And He's the one who anoints us. He makes us be born of Him. He gives us the unction so that
we know all things, and thereby He makes you a witness of Him.
And He does this by calling you to Himself and making you know
He knows everything about you. He knows your sin, He knows your
sin nature, but He makes you see He's the Rock who has redeemed
His people, put away our sin. That's the foundation He sets
us on, redemption accomplished. Christ our Redeemer. And He does
this work in us, making us living stone and builds us up into His
church. And He sends you forth now and
He says, and the devil himself is not going to be able to stop
my gospel from accomplishing my purpose. That's Christ to
rock. That's Christ to rock. I pray
you bless that. Let's stand together. Father, we cannot do anything
of ourselves. We can't make ourselves hear.
We can't make ourselves cease from our sin nature. We can't make ourselves hear
the gospel. We can't make ourselves rest
on Christ. We can't do it for ourselves,
we can't do it for anybody else. Lord, will you keep your church? Will you settle your church on
Christ the rock? We ask you, Lord, to make us
living stones. Settle us, cemented together,
fitly framed together on this one foundation. Make us to be
witnesses to one another that we really do believe the sin
of one another is put away. That we really do believe, God,
that you will not lay a charge to one for whom Christ died.
Make us bear witness that we really believe this gospel to
one another. And Lord, make us bear witness
of it to our friends and our neighbors, We need your power. We need your strength. We need you to be the rock, the
refuge, the foundation, the life, the anointing. We need your power,
Lord. We ask you to keep those who
are yours everywhere. Those that are not with us. We ask You, Lord, to protect
Your church and at the same time give Your church power to go
beyond the gates of hell. Call Your sheep out. And Lord,
forgive us for not speaking the Word. Forgive us for not inviting
sinners, perishing sinners, to come and hear. Forgive us, Lord, not being gracious to our brethren, charging who you will not charge. Lord, let us know that no matter what happens in this
world, you're going to keep your people. Let us be a help to that. Let us be a And I want to bear
witness to that and help when you use to build up your house. And let us wait on you to do
that. We thank you, Lord, for this good news. Christ the Rock. It's in his precious name we
ask these things. Amen.