The Church God Sees: A Church Built on Christ

Matthew 16:13–20

Foundations matter more than we think. In the late 1980s, an architect in South Korea designed a perfect office tower. His plans were strong. His structure was safe. His calculations were flawless. But over time, others thought they knew better. They changed his design without his consent. They removed the support columns he placed. They weakened the structure to add more features. They cut corners to save money. Cracks formed. Warnings were ignored. And on June twenty ninth, nineteen ninety five, the entire south wing of the building collapsed in twenty seconds. Five hundred and two people died. Hundreds more were injured. Families shattered because someone believed they could build on a foundation while ignoring the architect who designed it.

The tragedy wasn’t the collapse. The tragedy was that it was preventable.

That same danger sits in front of every church. God gives a flawless foundation in Christ, yet somewhere along the way people slowly add their own blueprints. Prayer gets replaced with convenience. Holiness gets traded for comfort. Structures get built on personality instead of presence. The cracks show for years before anyone admits something is wrong. Psalm one twenty seven says it clearly: unless the Lord builds the house, the builders work in vain. If the foundation is not Christ, collapse is guaranteed.

This passage in Matthew sixteen shows us the foundation Jesus expects His Church to stand on.

Jesus takes His disciples twenty five miles out of their normal route to a place called Caesarea Philippi. It was a place filled with idols, temples carved into cliffs, shrines to pagan gods, and sacrifices that stained the ground. It was a place people believed held the gates of Hades. This was the last place anyone expected the Messiah to take His followers. And yet Jesus brought them there on purpose. He wanted the confession of their faith to be spoken in the middle of the darkest spiritual environment they had ever seen.

Before they reached this moment, the disciples had already seen miracles. They had watched storms calm, crowds fed, demons flee, and the dead rise. They had listened to His teaching. They had carried His message. They had followed Him for almost two years. They knew He wasn’t an ordinary rabbi. They knew His words carried authority. But knowing facts and confessing truth are not the same thing. Jesus wanted to know what they believed in their hearts.

Who do people say I am.

Who do you say I am.

That question will always be the turning point of every believer’s life. In the middle of a pagan stronghold, Simon Peter steps forward and speaks the words no one else dared to say. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

The church God sees begins with the right confession.

Peter did not call Jesus a prophet. He did not call Him a miracle worker. He did not call Him a teacher. He declared Him the Christ. That revelation did not come from culture or tradition. Jesus said it came directly from the Father. Real revelation never comes from human education. It comes from intimacy with God. It comes from relationship. It comes from encounter.

Every move of God begins with the right confession about Jesus. Not with donors. Not with programs. Not with strategy. Not with talent. It begins with revelation. A church can only stand if its foundation is built on the truth of who Christ is. If our confession is wrong, everything we build will eventually crack.

The church God sees belongs to Christ, not us.

Jesus looked at Peter and said, I will build my church. Not Peter’s church. Not the disciples’ church. Not the pastor’s church. His church. The blueprints belong to Him. The direction belongs to Him. The glory belongs to Him.

A church is not built by branding, marketing, or momentum. It is built by the hands of Jesus. When we try to build on our own ideas, we repeat the mistake of the South Korean department store. We remove the support beams Jesus designed. We weaken the structure by chasing what is attractive instead of what is holy. We carry weights God never asked us to carry. And eventually the cracks start to show.

But when Jesus builds the house, nothing can shake it.

The church God sees is advancing, not hiding.

Standing near a cliff where pagan worshippers believed the gate of the underworld existed, Jesus made one of the strongest declarations in Scripture. The gates of hell shall not prevail against my church. Gates are defensive structures. They do not attack. They resist. And Jesus makes it clear that the kingdom of God is not a kingdom that hides behind walls. It is a kingdom that pushes forward and breaks through.

The church God sees does not wait for the world to get better. It confronts darkness with light. It preaches the gospel with courage. It prays with authority. It refuses to retreat. Each time a sinner repents, another gate falls. Each time the gospel is preached, hell trembles. Each time the church prays, the kingdom advances.

This is why we cannot build on comfort. We cannot build on trends. We cannot build on the past. We must build on Christ alone. If He is not the builder, collapse is a matter of time. But if He is the foundation, then no power of hell can stand against what He establishes.

May Mountain Valley Chapel be the church God sees. A church with the right confession. A church that belongs to Christ. A church that advances with courage. A church that refuses to let cracks go unattended. A church built on Christ from the ground up.

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