THE CHURCH
‘I will build My Church.’
Matthew 16:18
There is one part of our Lord’s work which to many is a dead letter. It is the provision He made for the continuance of His work among men. He did not aim at immediate results. Though the end of His labours must be the Cross, He would leave behind Him an organisation which should carry out His work.
I. The Church.—Not a book, not a system of philosophy, but a society, a body, a brotherhood—a body which had no documents, no endowments, but only the memories and precepts of a mysterious Person, Who was full of grace and truth. He left no documents. He employed persons to do His work. As the Father had sent Him, even so did He send them (His disciples). This not unusual, but in accordance with Divine plan. Given a cause, a society follows as a matter of course.
II. Its membership was by baptism, and to-day in the mission-field baptism is well understood to be the dividing line.
III. Its ministry.—He appointed Apostles, to whom He ‘gave authority.’
IV. Its precepts.—Officers and members (disciples and Apostles) were trained by Him.
V. Its prayer.—He gave them the Lord’s Prayer, and all must pray it.
VI. Its Eucharist.—As He had adopted baptism as the sacrament of admission, so He gave them the Eucharist as a sign and seal of union.
After His Resurrection eveything else disappears—the society with its ministry, its message, its sacraments, and its prayers alone remain. And this Society exists still, and to do the same work.
Canon Hammond.

THE DENIAL OF SELF
‘Let him deny himself.’
Matthew 16:24
I. Denial has the threefold sense of the refusal to acknowledge acquaintance or relationship, the rejection of the claim of authority, the repudiation of obedience to commands.
II. Self-denial therefore means the rejection of interference, authority, or rule by man’s self, and the substitution of Christ in the life.
III. It is a misuse of the phrase, to confound the denying of something to oneself with the denying of self.
IV. Many deny things to themselves, who never deny self.
V. Only there does self-denial exist, where Christ takes the place of self for all life’s decisions.
VI. The example of Christ is a perfect illustration of this true self-denial.
VII. It implies a definite act and decision, as introductory to a life of consecration and discipleship.
—The Rev. Hubert Brooke.

LIFE SAVED AND LOST
‘Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.’
Matthew 16:25
In the parallel passage of St. Mark 8:35, there is a slight addition: ‘for My sake and the Gospel’s’; and both there and in St. Luke 9:24, for ‘find it,’ the closing words are ‘save it.’ The same statement occurs in Matthew 10:39, and is abbreviated in St. Luke 14:26 into the short phrase: ‘hate … yea, and his own life also.’
I. Service not salvation.—The topic before us is not the saving or losing of the soul, but the life reckoned as gained or lost, according as it is yielded up to the Master’s service, or withheld from Him and kept for selfish ends. A life ‘lost,’ as the world names it, is really saved, gained and kept; whilst the life spent for worldly advantages, earthly profit, and selfish ends counts but as pure loss, and is worth nothing in His sight.
II. Christ as example.—Our Lord’s use of the idea of losing and keeping the life, in St. John 7:24-25, applies it to Himself and His own conduct, and once more makes Him the example for disciples to follow.
III. The yielded life.—The condition for consecration and discipleship, which calls for a practical surrender of the whole life, and a willingness to let it be lost to all personal ends for Christ’s sake, forms in fact the summary and climax of everything. The whole being is put under contribution and nothing is left unclaimed by Christ.
—The Rev. Hubert Brooke.