Title: Office of the Keys: Heart of the Church [Sermon]
Text: Matthew 16:19
Liturgical Date: Pentecost 13, Proper 16 A
Calendar Date: August 23, 2026
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County. 316 W. Main St., Forestville, WI 54213. 920-856-6420.

Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County serves Luxemburg, Wisconsin, and other areas around Northeast Wisconsin.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today we heard these words from Christ Jesus, our Lord: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” And on the basis of this passage, we’re going to be taking up the theme of the heart of the church.

My Grandmother’s Home

As many of you know, last weekend I was out of the pulpit here at St. Peter’s as I traveled to Greeley, Colorado for two purposes. I’ll talk about one of those purposes in a little bit. But the first purpose was to lay my beloved grandmother to rest. A lovely, fine Christian lady. Lived to the age of 98, a blessed end, and really a very beloved woman to me and to our whole family.

We laid her to rest last weekend. And when I think about my grandmother, I think about many things. One of the things I think about is her home in Warsaw, Missouri. This was her retirement home with my grandfather, Hugh, who himself had been ordained into the ministry, was a pastor as well. And their retirement home there in Warsaw, Missouri, to me was a palace.

It was maybe one of the greatest houses on the planet. It was just a really special place. No better place than my grandmother’s home. Now, I started to look at it in a little bit different light, however, when she was getting ready to move away from there. After my grandfather died and she wanted to move closer to my mother, her daughter in Greeley, Colorado, and she was getting it ready to sell, and I was there in my last visit to that home, looking around.

Seeing with Different Eyes

And the way I perceived things was a little bit different because I started looking at it not from the eyes of an adoring grandson, but rather from the eyes of a potential buyer, and what I saw was shocking to me. So I looked into the kitchen, the source of so much love from her, right? And I think the house had been built in the ’70s and, go figure, that linoleum was straight from 1974.

Countertops, same deal, and cheap ones at that. Cabinets, really nothing special. Pretty cheap and crummy. Really not a nice kitchen at all. And then I went and looked at the dining room. This source of great joy as we gather around the table to eat that delicious grandmother food.

And I looked down at the floor and my grandfather Hugh was a big man. I mean, he was 6’6” in his prime, muscular, and had other forms of body mass as well due to my grandmother’s good cooking. Huge man. And I looked down at the floor and I realized, oh my goodness, the place where he had scooted his chair in and out at mealtime over the years, he had worn grooves down to the subfloor, right straight through the carpeting and the padding because he was such a big man and just had put that pressure on there.

Holes in the carpeting. I looked up at the ceiling. This is a Christian home, so we prayed up to the Lord, right? And I looked at the ceiling and realized popcorn ceilings from 1974, but misapplied and therefore really pretty splotchy. A lot of that popcorn had come down. And I looked at the walls and, for a few years there my grandfather was in a motorized wheelchair, and I looked at the walls about four inches up from the ground and well, he had rubbed grooves in many of the walls where the wheels of his wheelchair had hit the walls, right?

Cheap doors. Just a really honest-to-goodness kind of a crummy house. And I never realized it before. I had been completely oblivious to it. Why was it a palace in my view? It’s because while the externals weren’t amazing, the internals were all correct. She had attended to the heart of the home. It was a place of love, affection, good food.

It was a restful place. One of the few places on Earth where I’ve ever felt truly at ease, and above all, centered on Christ Jesus the Lord. And because of that, to me, it was a palace.

Our Spiritual Home

Our home, brothers and sisters in Christ, is in heaven. And that’s a palace beyond compare. And we all look forward to that and anticipate that, but until we get to heaven, the Lord has granted us a home, a spiritual home here on Earth in the Holy Christian Church and in St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. And what our sermon is about today is remaining attentive to the heart of what it means to be a spiritual home here on Earth.

That we remain attentive to the heart of what it means to be the church. And it’s all tied in to what you probably learned back in catechism class, the Office of the Keys. Let’s review it. I’d like for you to open up your hymnals to page 326. Open up your hymnals to page 326.

The Office of the Keys

On the left-hand column, about three quarters of the way down, there’s a question there: What is the Office of the Keys? I’m going to ask you to read the answer along with me. What is the Office of the Keys? The Office of the Keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His Church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.

All right, so now the Office of the Keys actually has three primary texts that we draw it from in Scripture. In our gospel lesson, we read one of them in Matthew 16, and another very important passage which addresses the Office of the Keys is John chapter 20. Let’s read that together. Where is this written?

This is what Saint John the Evangelist writes in chapter 20: “The Lord Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’” In a way, there we see the carrying out of what Christ promised in Matthew 16.

Christ promised, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.” Here in chapter 20, He actually does the deed and gives the disciples the keys. All right. Now let’s take a look at the final question regarding this. What do you believe according to these words? I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain—even in heaven—as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.

The Loosing Key and the Binding Key

Now, when we usually think of the Office of the Keys, and it is in the Small Catechism written in the section dealing with confession and absolution, we usually associate it just with confession and absolution, but really it applies to all the means of grace.

It applies to all the ways the Lord opens up the kingdom of heaven to us by means of His grace and mercy, which Christ so lavishly won for us on the cross. Through His blessed death, through His holy resurrection, Christ Jesus has opened the kingdom of heaven to us. And the Lord extends that grace to us through means, through the means of, well, we actually just sang about it in Built on the Rock, through the Word of God as it’s proclaimed, through holy baptism, through the Lord’s Supper.

These are the means the Lord has given us to extend that grace and mercy, and that’s the loosing key. And that’s the key, the loosing key, to release us from our sins and from our bondage to death, and our bondage to the devil, and on the one hand to close the gates of hell to us, but on the other hand to open the doors of heaven to us.

That’s the key that the church wants to exercise, and that’s the key that ultimately God wants to exercise as well. We have fancy theological terms for this, like the proper work of the church, and so on. But this is, to put a short explanation, this is what we want, right? This is what all our ministry leads up to: to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life through that forgiveness.

Now, on the other hand, we have the binding key. So on the right hand is the loosing key, the key of the gospel. In the other hand is the key of the law, the key by which we bind sins to those who are unrepentant. And we do this through the proclaiming of the law sometimes, unfortunately, as well through Christian discipline within the congregation.

And when we boil it down, the Office of the Keys is really the one work proper to the church. It’s really the one thing that separates the church from every other organization on Earth. Now, it doesn’t mean it’s the only thing that the church does or should do. We should do a lot of different things, right?

Office of the Keys: What Is Proper to the Church

So, and I praise God for all of these other things that the church gets involved in. For example, our sister congregation, St. John’s, last two weekends a group of men went with Lutheran Emergency Response Teams, or Early Response Teams, to help clean up after the tornadoes down in Menasha. So friends of yours that I’m sure you know, Glenn Smith, Randy Klott, and Todd Althoff rode went down to do that.

Praise be to God for this. The church should be doing this. It’s an outgrowth of who we are in Christ. We who have received a heavenly home therefore are glad to serve others when it comes to their earthly homes. Praise be to God for this. But here’s the thing: you don’t need to be a part of a church to do that kind of work, right?

Now, it’s good that we do. We ought to do it, and actually I may be overstating the case there because fact of the matter, most of that kind of work, most charity work in the world is done by Christian organizations and Christians. But you don’t need to be, right? There’s Lions Clubs, there’s Kiwanis Clubs, there’s all kinds of ways that you can do that kind of work.

So it’s not proper to the church. The church engages in fellowship, right? And one of my favorite times of the year, I love Advent and Lent, and honestly, one of the reasons why I love Advent and Lent, I love the meals. I love church food. Okay? I love getting together with my brothers and sisters in Christ, having a little meal together before or after service, and then worshiping the Lord together.

It’s a wonderful time. But you don’t need the church in order to have social time, right? I mean, I live just a few houses away from a social establishment, a very popular one that’s very full from 2:30 in the afternoon to 7:30 in the afternoon, and yes, I do see you coming in and out of there.

And so once again, you don’t need the church in order to socialize, right? Other institutions do that sort of thing. But what can a social establishment not give you? What can the Lion’s Club not provide you? What can your job not provide either? That’s the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, freedom from all of the guilt and all the shame and the joy and anticipation and hope of life everlasting.

That is the one thing that the church offers. And if we are neglectful of this, if we are forgetful of this, if we pay attention to all of the external things, yet neglect that heart, well then we’re like a palace of a home where there’s no love, no guidance, nothing of the sort.

Attending to Externals Rather than What Is Proper to the Church

I knew a lady who was, in many ways, the exact opposite of my grandmother. Nice lady. She lived up the street from me. I lived in Oakville, Missouri at the time, and she lived just a few houses up the cul-de-sac from me. Had the nicest house on the cul-de-sac. Bushes immaculately trimmed. Lawn always just perfect.

No weeds. Spic and span. Always out vacuuming out her cars, washing windows, all that good stuff. Beautiful, beautiful home. Nothing wrong with that, by the way. It’s good to take care of the things the Lord has given to us. And yet she had neglected the heart of the home. Her marriage, nonexistent. Her son, well, he was in the same grade as me.

I never told her this, although I think maybe she had an inkling, but literally a drug dealer. And so she had this home where everything was sparkly and pristine on the outside, but had neglected the heart of what a home ought to be, a place marked by faithfulness, love, and striving together for mutual uplift. Striving for the good together. That had been lost.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, sometimes churches are attentive to all of the external things but completely forgetful of the heart of the church. You know, there are lots of churches that have just an utterly pristine building, and maybe they have the best possible tech, and they have a pastor who is way better looking than I am.

Everything externally looks amazing, and yet you can go Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and barely hear the name of Jesus proclaimed. Barely. If you’re lucky, you might hear the name of Jesus. And the forgiveness of sins? Forget about it. Maybe one Sunday a year for what they call Gospel Sunday. A complete neglect of the heart of the church.

Neglecting the Binding Key of the Office of the Keys

Now, that’s maybe not something that we might experience here, but I think that we have potentially other ways that we might be allured to be neglectful of the Office of the Keys. One of the ways, very common in Lutheran churches, is by forgetfulness of the binding key. Remember that key which retains sins and warns sinners away from their transgressions.

And there are lots of reasons why churches may be neglectful of this. There are churches that may see the law of God and the Ten Commandments as traditionally explained and understood by them to be something of an embarrassment. So therefore they seek to redefine the law of God, and they might say, “You know, God said that then, but now we know this.” On the other hand, there are churches who aren’t going to go quite that far, but rather instead churches that simply, while not saying, “Look, we’re gonna redefine the law of God,” but rather just simply fail to preach it and to teach it.

And they’re neglectful of it that way. You know, because the law of God, it’s hard. It’s a hard word, and you know, a hard word isn’t loving. It’s not caring. Quite honestly, the exact opposite is the case. I mentioned how we celebrated two things over the last week. And first of all, laying my grandmother to rest.

And second of all, oh, such a blessing, got to spend some time with my two young nephews, one just a few weeks old for his baptism, praise be to God for that, and the other who is nearing two years old. Such a blessing as well. Lovely little boy. But it was also a reminder that when you’re taking care of children that are four years old and younger, it is a constant suicide watch.

They’re always trying to off themselves. And so because of this, you have to speak hard words—lots of hard words. “No, don’t go running out into traffic. No, don’t go and pet that snarling pit bull. No, don’t put the butter knife into the electrical outlet. No, don’t throw yourself in the swimming pool without your floaties.”

And we would be utterly unloving if we were unwilling to say those hard words. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we sinners are spiritual two-year-olds. And even of us who are redeemed, the old sinful nature still clings around our necks. And sin is ultimately us trying to off ourselves eternally, by the way. And the church fails to love unless it is willing to say, “No, don’t do this thing.

I know it is appealing for various reasons. I know that everybody else around you is doing it for those reasons. I know that people will think you odd for your failure to engage in this way.” Don’t. And if you have, turn away, repent so that you can receive the forgiveness of sins and not die in your transgression but instead receive eternal life.

Neglecting the Means of Grace

Final way is when churches and individuals are neglectful of the means the Lord delivers His good grace and mercy, the way that the Lord gives us eternal life. You want to desire to have a better and prolonged life here on earth, what we would otherwise call health. Now, I might say, “I wanna be healthy.”

Many of us probably would say, “Yeah, I wanna be healthy,” and we say that with our lips, but then when it comes time to avoid that second helping, or it comes time to go to the gym or take that walk, or it comes time to put the phone away, stop scrolling, or hit off on the television and go to bed to get some better sleep, well, our actions speak differently. We say that we want the health, but we don’t want to use the means that are right there in front of us to attain that better health.

Spiritually, a lot of times churches and we as individuals are the same way, right? The Lord gives us eternal life through the means of grace, through these things of the loosing key that we talked about, the proclamation of the Word of God, holy absolution, baptism, the Lord’s Supper. And yet, while we may verbalize that we want eternal life, yet we are neglectful of the means the Lord gives us eternal life.

Attending to the Heart of the Church

And my prayer for us, my prayer for us as St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, both collectively and us individually is this: that we would, while we attend to the external things, and we do all of those things and do them well, that we always remember the heart of what we’re about. That as well, we would in addition be attentive not only to the gospel of God, but also to the law of God. Then finally, that we would gladly make use of the means of grace so that we would be built up in the faith and receive life everlasting. And here’s the thing, as long as that heart is there, everything else is in place.

And that’s what we sang about today, right? Built on the rock, the church will stand even when steeples are falling. Do you know what that hymn is about? The hymn is about this: look, even if our edifices crumble down, even if institutionally things start falling apart, even if we’re a little shabby around the edges, as long as we attend to the heart of the church, the Office of the Keys, the church will stand and Satan will not overcome.

And wherever we make use of the gifts of God unto eternal life, there is a door to heaven even if we don’t have any functioning doors to enter. Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us individually and collectively attend to the heart of the church. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Office of the Keys: The Heart of the Church [Sermon]