Episode 14: Why You Have to Go to Church to Be a Christian

The Rural Church Podcast. Two point up. Just a couple of pastors discussing life, ministry, theology, and the gospel from a local church perspective. Eddie, what's it time for? The Rural Church Podcast.

Why This Sermon Says You Have to Go to Church to Be a Christian

Welcome to another episode of The Rural Church Podcast. On this episode, we listen to a sermon excerpt from Alan Nelson on why you have to go to church to be a Christian. This sermon will pick up on point number two in a three-point sermon, and you can listen to that or find the full sermon at PerryvilleSBC .org.

Here we go. So Christ bled for this. Number two, local church life possesses expected difficulty. Number two, local church life possesses expected difficulty. Verse 31 now. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Now, Christians, we talked about this briefly last week, must not be bitter people. This is true in general. You should not be bitter at your job. You should not be bitter in the store. You should not be bitter in the home or stuck in traffic.

That's all true. But what I'm saying, too, is you must see. You must see that verse 31 has a specific connection to the local church. And the reason we know this is because of the context of verse 25 to 32, and also the specific opposite revealed in verse 32.

So wrestle with me for a moment with this. In verse 32, the opposite of being bitter is to be kind to one another. You see that in the text. Look at it. See it with me. So one hand, don't be bitter. On the other hand, be kind to one another.

Remember, by the way, that this is the putting off and putting on section. So all the way back up to verse 20. All the way back up to Ephesians 420. But that is not the way you learned Christ. Assuming that you've heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus.

Now, listen to this. Remember, we've covered this. But to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness.

In other words, Christians put offline and then we see these verses, right? We put offline. We speak the truth. We put off stealing. We do honest work. We put off corrupting talk. We put on edifying speech and we put off bitterness and we put on kindness, tender heartedness and forgiving one another.

But all bitterness will put this off. But all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another. This is what we put on tender hearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you.

So contextually, we could say it this way. In verse 31, we could say we are to put away bitterness toward one another because the opposite is kindness toward one another. You understand? So let all bitterness toward one another is what he's saying, because in verse 32, it says, be kind to one another.

Now, the overarching point is this local church life possesses expected difficulty. Now, hear me carefully. Yes, local church life. And we're going to talk about this to express it possesses expected beauty and glory and harmony and wonder.

Amen, amen, amen. But we also have to deal with reality. Paul commands the church at Ephesus to do this because this is real life in the church. There is real and actual temptation in our hearts for verse 31.

Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander is well, I'm not I'm not I'm not dealing with that. No, no, no. No, listen, let me let me be specific. I've seen this even here. Right. I've seen this even here.

There is a temptation for bitterness. There is a temptation for anger or rather like so. So what I'm saying is don't put this on about what he's probably talking about, you know, other places. No, no, no.

Local churches, local churches have a real temptation for these things, because when you put believers in close proximity to one another, whether showing hospitality to one another, they're living their lives in conjunction or in conjunction with one another, you will inevitably have the temptation for bitterness.

You're going to have it. OK, so let me use this example. In probably every marriage in here, there has been a time at one point or another that the husband has been tempted to be bitter with his wife.

And the wife has been tempted at some point in your marriage, whether you've been married for three years or thirty two years or three hundred years, there's been a temptation for the wife to be bitter with her husband or the husband to be bitter with his wife.

Why is that? Well, because we're we're redeemed, yes, but we still have to wrestle with the with the the old man, as it were. And the point of my analogy is this. Two Christians undergoing progressive sanctification, you need grace and like this is the closest relationship you have.

These are the people that you love the most, your wife or your husband, if that is true, the person you love the most, if they're going to be a temptation in your heart at times for bitterness, then what do you think is going to happen when we have these other covenantal relationships?

That's the relationship in the local church together. Well, you're going to be tempted, you're going to be tempted to be bitter or wrath or anger or slander. These things are real. And so you must treat them as real.

Notice in verse thirty one, when he says, let all bitterness. The word all in the text is like every kind. So some of your translations may actually say every kind of bitterness. So when we commit our lives to the local church, there are times that in our heart or in the hearts of others, we have to deal with these sins, every kind of bitterness.

There may be surface level bitterness, right? Like I wanted to drive the van tonight or whatever, you know, like I wanted to pass out the track to that person on a surface level bitterness. Or there can be sometimes deep rooted, deep seated bitterness or anger or wrath or clamor or slander.

But but here's what Paul is saying. We are to put away all of surface level bitterness, deep seated bitterness, any bitterness in between. Put it away. That's a command from the Holy Spirit. Put it away.

Put away every manifestation of these sins. There are many people in churches who have never had to deal with these temptations because they never really get into the lives of other people in the church.

Like this doesn't even make sense to them. They don't understand the nature and purpose and function of the local church. Like they're like, why would I be bitter? I only see those people an hour a week and and it's always happy.

Right. I'm never bitter with them. I love everything about them. Well, that's because you don't. Involve yourself. In the lives of people. Because when you begin to involve yourself in the lives of people in the local church, these temptations will arise.

Satan hates the local church, by the way. People are so committed to the false ideas that are floating out there. Christianity, I saw this. I saw this from someone I love within the last couple of weeks.

Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. Wrong. Right. Buzzer. That's wrong. It's objectively wrong. I understand what's being communicated, but it's wrong. Or you don't have to go to church to be a Christian.

That is wrong. Their involvement in the local church of people is super. These people superficial at best. In fact, let me say this. I've said this before, but I want to say this gently. I'm not trying to, you know, disparage anybody's past or anything like that.

But let me just say this. Most people, like the vast majority of people in our county, even those professing to be Christians, I would go so far as to say have not experienced life in a vibrant, biblical New Testament church, like in a really healthy situation.

What are you talking about? I'm talking about church where discipline is rightly practiced and membership is genuinely meaningful. And there are a plurality of elders and deacons working together in beautiful symmetry and harmony and hospitality is flourishing within the body and worship and evangelism, mission.

They're all focused on the glory of God and honor of Christ. The reality is, and maybe some of you would admit this, there are many people in our county who've never even seen such a church. And this is what we're striving for here, to take God's word seriously when it comes to His church.

Many in our areas, perhaps even people in this room, see the essence of Christianity is this, praying after football. Look, I don't have a problem with praying after games, sports games, but I sure like, I see the way that some of the people playing these sports live, and I'm like, that's not the essence of Christianity, praying after football, baseball, or basketball games, or jetting in and out on a Sunday morning, or making an occasional Bible study, or listening to K-Love, or just trying to be nice and friendly and Southern and moral, or even coming to church whenever the doors are open.

But this is really the end of your involvement with the body of Christ. Friends, these things are not the essence of Christianity. I'm not saying that all the things on my list are bad. Don't misunderstand me.

Boy, what a preacher preaching against today, praying after a ball game. No, that's not what I'm preaching against. I'm just saying that's not the essence of Christianity. These things do not account for verse 31 and 32 that we see in our text.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. This is not talking about your feelings toward Joe Biden, right? This is talking about your interactions with the local church.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God and Christ forgave you. Now, I'm not diminishing, you guys know I would not diminish corporate worship meeting. It's popular to say things like this, stop going to church.

How many cliches can we knock out today? Stop going to church. Start being the church. Right? Maybe I need a buzzer sound. Not right. You can't be the church if you stop going to church, right? Because one of the things that means to be the church is together with the church.

So I'm not diminishing our gatherings, but what I'm adding here is this idea of fellowship together that extends beyond these gatherings. As this happens, there's going to be times you're tempted to be bitter, or angry, or even slanderous, because that is the reality of living life in deep covenantal relationships with others who are undergoing sanctification.

Your problem is you are not yet fully made into the image of Christ. And that's my problem too. And so we wrestle with these things, and we have to fight it. You're going to be tempted to be bitter. You may be tempted to be bitter with me.

Sometimes pastors make decisions that you don't like. But let us consider what Paul says in our text. Put it away. Even though local church life possesses expected difficulty, our command is to put these sins away.

Do not entertain them. You begin to let bitterness into your heart, and I'm going to tell you it will eat you alive. So Paul says, let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

The Local Church as the Most Beautiful Place on Earth

Now our last point. So Christ bled for this. Secondly, church life possesses, local church life possesses expected difficulty. But thirdly, consider this. The local church is the most beautiful place on earth.

The local church is the most beautiful place on earth. Here, what a sweetness. Here's the kingdom of God. Here is where sin is not just fought, but also mortified. Here is where we don't just put off the sins of bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and slander, but we also put on verse 32, be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

Friends, here's where membership stands on equal footing at the foot of the cross. It doesn't matter your skin color. It doesn't matter the country that you were born. It doesn't matter the hobbies that you prefer.

It doesn't matter what your past looked like. Here, we're united by one thing. We're forgiven and redeemed in Christ together. We're forgiven in Christ by God who has poured over us His immeasurable and bountiful grace.

And this is one of the of the Lord's day. Think about this for just a moment. Out there, outside these walls, you have to deal daily with the pressure of secularization, I should say, of worldliness. You have to deal with the barrage of bitterness.

You have to listen to the filthy language of the world. You have to deal with corruption and sin. All of those things are so weary to the pilgrims who are bound for the celestial city, like, these things just beat us up, and they weigh us down, and they discourage us.

Oh, but here, we gather on the Lord's day, and we see the most beautiful place on earth. And we see the gospel bearing fruit, and we experience these non-negotiable virtues of kindness and tender-heartedness and forgiveness.

We walk in this, and we say to a brother, brother, I've wronged you. Will you forgive me? And we know the expectation, yes, brother, I will forgive you. I love you, because Christ has forgiven me. Right?

This is a beautiful place and a beautiful reality, and so many miss this in Christianity. John Gill notes that this kindness that the text speaks of appears in looks and words and actions. Have you ever thought about kind facial expressions?

You ever heard that old song, I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy out down in my heart? And so it says, like, well, it's down in your heart, praise God, but it ain't showing on your face. Right? Have you ever thought about that?

Our body language can communicate bitterness. So think about this. Put on kindness on your face, not just in your heart, but in your face, and not just on your face, but also on your tongue. You haven't obeyed this command just by smiling at someone.

Speak kindness to them. Speak the blessing, the gracious words of our sovereign king to one another in the local church. Move beyond southern politeness and speak grace and speak truth and speak love.

Sing with them. Sing. Last Lord's Day, we had lunch and a few of us sang hymns together. I'm glad it wasn't recorded. We would not have won any Grammys. That's a kindness to one another. Sing. Then Gill notes actions.

So let us show kindness in our looks, in our words, in our actions. That is, be kind to one another. So I'm not just not being bitter. You are not obeying Ephesians 4, 31 and 32 by just not being bitter.

So some people think this, well, I have some things that I need to say, but I just won't say them because they would be mean. And if I don't say them, then I've completed this text. Nope. No, you haven't.

It's not just don't be bitter. It's what? Look at the text. It's not mean. Not mean. It's what? Be kind. So serve. Let kindness invade your heart. Show on your face. Manifest itself on your tongue and then in your hands.

Serve the body of Christ in kindness. And I say to you, you cannot obey this command outside the local church. Let me prove that to you for just real quick. We should be kind to one another. There are many, we've got to think bigger than just this.

There are many commands in the New Testament that are impossible to be obeyed really outside of the visible local church. So our text, verse 32, you can underline it. You can circle it. However, if you want to draw a highlight to it, it says one another.

It's a one another command. Be kind to one another. These one another's in the scriptures, in the grand scheme of things, they can't really be fulfilled in isolation. So let me just give you some examples.

You may take certain commands like love one another, and you might just try to apply that individualistically. But when taken in context of all the other one another's in the New Testament, it's really inconceivable that these commands could actually tangibly really be fulfilled anywhere but in the context of the local church.

So for example, take our text. Take the text and you and you think that verse 32 means primarily that you're supposed to be kind to the universal church. That's what you think it means. Primarily. Okay.

Then you need to start tomorrow and begin finding every Christian in the world and you need to be actively speaking kindness to them and you need to be actively serving them and loving them. You cannot fulfill this command, be kind, just by letting people come to you and you be kind.

No, no. This is an active thing. Go out and be kind. Well, you can't do that. You can't actually, yes, you can be kind to the universal church, but you can't actually fulfill the command and its intent outside the walls of the local church.

That's impossible because the intent of the text, though, yes, application is beyond the local church, the intent, though, of the text is directed at real life in the local church. Be kind to one another.

There are so many more one another commands in the Bible. Bear with one another in love. Carry one another burdens. Consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Confess your sins to one another.

Guys, you cannot, you cannot apply these verses as primarily to the universal church. They wouldn't make sense. Peter's command, 1 Peter 4, 9, show hospitality to one another without grumbling. It's a specific local church command.

It cannot be fulfilled in its context apart from the local church. To reiterate, I've beat this qualification to death, but just to reiterate, there are applications of these one another's for all Christians not joined in covenantal relationship together in a specific local church.

But if we try to apply them only to the universal church, we make them meaningless. Let me give you one more thought on this point. If you try to be kind, you say, I'm just going to be kind. I'll just try to be kind to everybody.

You wind up actually not being kind to the people that the text commands you to be kind to. What I mean is, in verse 32, you have to actively think about this. You have to actively take off the bitterness and put on the kindness and apply it in the relationship of the local church.

So what I'm saying to us is we have in this text a magnificent and tangible illustration of what life looks like in a healthy church. This is it. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you, because this is the most beautiful place on earth.

We are kind and tenderhearted and forgiving in this place because individually, this is how God has treated us. So in response to the gospel, this is how we interact now with each other in the covenant community of the local church.

Our hearts have been transformed by the grace of God and the gospel. And we are now not hardhearted, but we're now tenderhearted and kind and forgiving. And this is what it looks like to put off the sins of verse 31 and to put on the virtues of verse 32.

And all of this is in connection to the local church. So this is what I mean by you have to go to church to be a Christian. Now, I know that I know that you're sitting there and you're going to think of extremes.

It's just what we do. Well, what about the person in the nursing home? What about the person deployed on active duty in the military? But I'll handle that this way this morning. Those don't apply to you, right?

You're not in the nursing home. You're not in active duty. So I'm talking to you and I'm telling you that you cannot obey or live out Ephesians 4, 31 and 32 apart from the local church. You cannot be a Christian and live separated from the local church.

Repentance, Church Membership, and the Gates of Hell

So here's a big question we have today. Big question. I don't want to joke about this. I don't want to go over this, you know, over your head on this. I want you to think about the big question that you have to ask yourself today.

Do I agree with the New Testament's version of Christianity or not? Do I agree that this is the word of the living God and that I am bound to listen to Him and obey Him and that I am bound to define my understanding of Christianity based on His words, not on tradition?

Is my understanding of what it means to be a Christian and how this is inextricably connected to the local church, is my understanding of these things in line with the Holy Spirit's as revealed in the Bible?

And if it's not, what can you do? Two primary options you have before you. The first one will be a real temptation. Option one, two primary options. I don't know if I agree with all this. Option one then is this.

Just call me crazy. Reformed Baptist pastor, particular Baptist pastor, Calvinistic, whatever. Call me crazy. Okay. You'll have company. You can say Quattro is crazy in his beliefs about the local church and you may survey the people of Perry County and get 95 to agree with you.

Or higher, I don't know. Elders, biblical church membership, discipline, life together in a deeply meaningful and tangibly fruitful way. Genuine Christians actually prioritizing the local church. A robustly biblical Baptist church.

Crazy. The majority of our county rejects these ideas of Christ's church. You got that option, right? Yeah, he's crazy. And maybe you'll comfort yourself that you're in the majority. But here's the second option.

And here's the option that I exhort you to. You can repent. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you.

You can repent. You can say, Holy Spirit, I see this. Oh, I see this. And I want this. This is what I want. Help me to embrace your understanding of the local church, oh God, and not my own. Help me to align myself with Christ's vision for the church and not anyone else's.

We can take up this text and we can lay aside tradition. We can lay aside popularity. We can lay aside Bible belt Christian culture. And we can say, we believe you, Lord. We trust you, Lord. There is beauty for the local church here.

And we want you to help us obey. Oh, we live in a society that is decayed. We live in a country that is so close to obliteration in so many ways. A little bitty virus. It's like we're still feeling the residual effects of that.

Over two years later, what's next? Our country's on the brink even of destruction. But look at what we have before us in these verses. The local church. Hey. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.

This is God's plan for the nations. Oh, and who knows how our gracious God might even use the local church to bring reformation and revival to little bitty Perryville, Arkansas, maybe even to our country.

I don't know all that God is doing here, but I'm just going to tell you as your pastor, I'm blown away. To see the movement of God. I'm blown away. What might God do if we get serious? Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you, friends, brothers and sisters. Will we give our lives to one another as we give our lives to Christ here in this place?

The local church is the most beautiful place on earth. OK, this is it. How will you see the Lord's application? Of the reality of these verses. To your lives. This is one of those passages actually, isn't it?

Sometimes you come upon a passage. And you're like, oh, I don't struggle with that. So this is for someone else. But that's not this passage, right? There's application in this passage for your pastor and for each one of us to consider and to think and to repent and to trust and to obey.

Amen.