You Hold the Keys of the Kingdom

Feb 10 2023 - Eric Buresh

I’m so excited about our body’s focus this year on personal evangelism – on sharing the One Message with our family, friends, and neighbors (all those with whom God places us in contact).  

We are evangelicals. Believe it or not, evangelical is not a political category. The word evangelical comes from the Greek word “euangelion” which means in various forms "the good news,” “the Gospel,” or a “reward for bringing good news.” We are a people that brings the Gospel. Professing to be an evangelical that won’t be evangelistic is like professing to be a pilot that won’t fly or a designated hitter that won't step in the batter’s box. We are evangelicals, and by the Grace of God and the boldness granted by His Spirit, we are going to become in practice what we already are in Christ. 

We are a people that literally hold the keys to the kingdom of heaven. While we strive to be ever poorer in our own spirit and our own power, we are amazed and celebrate that the King has granted us immense power to be used as we speak on His behalf. Our words have the power to free people spiritually, to break the chains of slavery to sin, to deliver them out of the kingdom of darkness and into the marvelous kingdom of light! 

After Peter’s stunning confession that Jesus is both the Christ and God, Jesus told Peter about this great power we hold, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:17-19) Lest you think this great power to bind and loose was reserved for Peter, Jesus repeated the exact same statement to the church at large in Matthew 18:18. 

Please let this soke in. You hold the keys. You, by your words, can unlock the great Treasure for others. They must hear the words: “How can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” (Romans 10:14 NLT) We are evangelicals. We evangelize. It’s who we are in Christ. We hold enormous power, and enormous responsibility. Silence can be deadly. 

What are the words that unlock this great power? At the bedrock level, remember Peter’s confession: “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16) Jesus is God, and Jesus is Christ. There was a time when I thought Christ was Jesus’s last name. It’s not. It’s His title. The Greek equivalent of “Messiah.” Peter was linking Jesus to the hundreds of Old Testament teachings about the great redeemer who would come to rescue His people from their rebellion. This is the good news: Jesus is God (our Lord and King) and He is our rescuer. We can learn many different ways to unpack these bedrock words, but we hold these keys of the kingdom in our hearts by God’s grace, and ours is the great responsibility to use them. Whether our words are received by others in a way that frees, or binds is a matter between the recipients and God, but whether we turn the keys in the first instance is a matter that rests with us. 

I’ll end with two quotes from one of my heroes, Charles Spurgeon, one heavy and one happy.  

The heavy first: “Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.” 

Ending with the happy: “To be a soul winner is the happiest thing in the world. And with every soul you bring to Jesus Christ, you seem to get a new heaven here upon earth.”