The Cutting Room Floor Episode 3 - "Does the Bible Teach Church Membership?"

Redeemer Bible Fellowship

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Okay, back again, back again, back again. All right, let's go.

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Oh, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Wherever you're listening to this. I am Kofi Dubois and I'm here with Eddie Casillas and this is the third episode of the

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Cutting Room Floor Podcast. Eddie, how you doing, man? So far, so good, man. I'm having some good conversations about the podcast, you know, and talking about the church.

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So I'm excited to continue. Awesome. Awesome. Like we said, this is the third episode of our sort of Cutting Room Floor.

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It's not sort of, that's what we've called it. But the basic idea of this is to kind of do a brief review of Sunday's message and then to dig in a little deeper into some of the themes and ideas that were touched on.

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And as the name suggests, get into a little bit of what I had to leave out of the sermon on Sunday for obviously time and more practical considerations.

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So with that, I'll turn it over to Eddie and he will be this week's questioner. All right.

01:04

Thanks, Kofi. Yeah. So a sermon is really good. Really important considering, you know, where we're at in the

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United States and the sort of culture of Pacific Northwest. You know, one of your first points was defining church membership.

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And so can you kind of give us a smooth and good idea of how to define church membership?

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I feel like there's a lot of people who don't understand the idea of what you mean when you say a formal relationship with the church. I mean, I feel like that kind of language might scare some, but what do we mean when we say that?

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Well, what we mean when we say that it's a formal relationship is simply that there's commitment involved. That you are making some promises to the church and the church is making some promises to you.

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Jonathan Edwards, who I don't quote for everything, but I think he was right on this. Jonathan Edwards described the relationship between a

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Christian and their church as being akin to marriage. Well, that's an illustration we can all understand.

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When you get married, both of us are married men. Well, when we got married, we made certain commitments.

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We call them vows, but we made certain commitments to our wives and they made certain commitments to us.

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Now, nobody looks at that and says, Oh, that is, well, actually, let me not tell a lie. I'm sure some radical feminists somewhere think that's oppressive and that's a terrible thing.

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But for most of us who live in the real world, we have no problem with that. We generally think that's a good thing.

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That's to be encouraged. That a man committing to his wife and a woman committing to her husband is a wonderful thing.

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Nobody complains that that's too formal or it's too much. You know, everyone's like, no, that's a wonderful commitment.

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But for whatever reason, when it comes to the church, people get very scared about that. Which is interesting because the

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Bible describes our relationship to Jesus as a marriage. That we are the church collectively is the bride of Christ.

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And he is the divine husband. So when you think of it, when we talk about a formal commitment, think of it as essentially that kind of a binding relationship.

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That while again, like we'll probably talk about this later on in the message, but you know,

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I don't believe that, you know, church membership is ironclad so people can never leave for any circumstance once you're in, you're in for life.

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I don't think any of us are saying that. What we are saying is that if you have made this commitment, it's a serious commitment and it's a particular commitment.

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You are committing to particular things. You're not just committing generally to, you know,

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I guess I'll turn up once in a while and I might just throw some money in the plate or the box or whatever it is you do at your church if you're watching this.

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No, you're actually saying, no, there are certain things that I am saying I will do based on who

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I am. And the church is saying there are certain things we will do based on who we are.

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And so that's what I mean when I say it's a formal relationship. Okay. And you said it was a formal relationship with the universal church or the local church.

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So the definition that I gave on Sunday from Jonathan Lehman is that church membership is a formal relationship between the individual

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Christian and I added a word, the local church. So all

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Christians by virtue of their being born of God, their being baptized in the spirit, first Corinthians 12, 13, all

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Christians are part of the universal church, but not all

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Christians are part of particular local churches. I'm not a member of every single church that is out there.

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I may attend various churches like if I'm on the road or something, you know, circumstances may change.

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You go somewhere else. That's one thing. But generally speaking, I'm not a member.

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I am not a committed part of every single church that is out there. The number of churches that I'm actually a committed member of are very few as in one.

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And that's what we're saying. The in church membership, you are entering into a particular relationship with a particular local church.

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Again, if we can borrow the marriage illustration I'm not married to every woman in the world.

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I'm married to Laura. You're not married to every woman in the world. You're married to Tiffany. Same thing with local church membership.

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It's not saying that you don't have relationships of varying kinds with other churches and what have you.

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Of course not. But you're saying that this body is the body that I have chosen to join myself to, to serve the

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Lord in and to be discipled by that's again, it's one Christian to one local church.

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It's not one Christian to multiple local churches. It's one Christian, one church.

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Absolutely. Yeah. So just like a marriage, it's like we enter into covenant with one another and before God.

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And so someone doesn't believe that, I guess, where would you point them to the covenant membership, you know, in scripture.

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So this was really just the second point of my sermon on Sunday where I, I started off by making a case that there's a difference between something being biblical.

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And something only being biblical. If you can give a clear chapter and verse that nobody argues about, because the reality is, if you say that there are any number of topics for which we do not have a single chapter and verse that makes the case.

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And I gave some examples on Sunday. Some of them were little tongue in cheek, but again, it's trying to demonstrate that if that's the logic you hold to your, you know, you're setting yourself up for some failure here.

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And so can I give you a chapter and verse that causes a covenant and says that you must view judgment?

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I can't. What I can do though, is what I tried to do on Sunday is to give you a number of lines of biblical evidence that lead to that conclusion.

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And so we talked about the example of the early church. We talked about the, you know, pictures of the biblical pictures of the church.

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We talked about the reality of church discipline. We talked about the call to biblical submission.

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All of these lines of evidence all come together. The fact that, okay, the early church had a number for the people who were part of the church.

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It says that people were added to them. So there was a specific body that existed. And we looked at just the church in Jerusalem, and there were people who were added to that body.

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They could account for them. They knew who was part of that body and they knew who wasn't. In the case of the biblical pictures of the church, we talked about the three pictures we gave in week one, the church as an assembly, the church as a body, and the church as a fellowship.

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All three of those imply some sort of commitment. And then we also added the church as a family.

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So we all understand that, that again, I may be friends of lots of families, but I'm not a member of every family.

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And so we talked about that, the reality of church discipline. And I simply made the point that you can't exercise effective discipline without a rubric for determining, as my pastor back in London would say, those who are in and those who are out.

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As I put it on Sunday, if you discipline somebody, but you don't have an active membership, what are you disciplining them from?

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What are you removing them from? What really stops you from saying, and again,

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I haven't heard from anyone, but I imagine that was probably, well, depending on the setting, that could be a controversial point.

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But the reality is, why are you removing them too? Because all they can say is, well, you guys don't want me here, but I'm not committed here.

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So I can just go down the road and it is what it is. And as long as that person doesn't tell the other church, then none the wiser.

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Like you basically just slid right out from underneath that discipline. I think membership with teeth, as some people put it, the ability to actually make that discipline binding such that if somebody leaves our church and a half,

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I can actually contact the pastor of wherever they go next and be. So by the way, just so you should know, blah, blah, blah.

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Again, that implies a formal set membership. Yeah. And then just finally, just the reality of the

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Bible talking about specific leaders who serve in specific churches. And the command is for those who are not leaders to obey and to submit to their leaders.

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Again, if you don't have a particular church or a part of who are you submitting to? Yeah. So again, can

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I give you a chapter and verse that says we must view church membership covenantally with all these responsibilities?

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No. And I don't find that to be a problem if I'm honest, because I can,

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I wouldn't even say infer that I can build the case for that from any number of biblical texts being put together in their context.

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Yeah. Kofi, can't, can't you though, establish a case that God works in the covenants with his people?

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No, you can. I wouldn't disagree with that. I would simply be cautious of the fact that generally speaking, that's why

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I use the term covenantal church membership versus covenant membership. I say that sometimes

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I can be interchangeable with that if I'm speaking too fast, but generally I try to make a distinction between that simply because we want to be very careful that that technical term covenant in the

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Bible isn't applied to things that aren't called covenants in the Bible. So it has the framework of a covenant in that it's a binding relationship, but it is not a covenant in the sense that, well, let me put it this way.

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It's a covenant between men, not necessarily a divine covenant like we see in the

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Bible, if that makes sense. Oh, that does make, I appreciate the distinction there. But he could totally misplace that.

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Yes. This is a binding agreement among people. I would argue honored by God because it's orderly and it reflects the way he does.

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He's designed the church, but it's not as though this is okay. God is the one making this covenant with us.

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The covenant that we have as God's people is the one that he's made in the new covenant that we're a part of.

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And if you're a believer, you're part of that already. The horizontal covenant between men.

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Yeah, I think it's a good way to put it. Yeah. A horizontal covenant. Yeah. Cool. That's awesome.

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Yeah. So I remember you talking about the formal relationship and you talked about the covenantal membership, but there's one thing that you didn't touch on that I'd like for you to get into here.

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And that was the church and the keys of the kingdom. What is that?

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What do you mean by that? I know I've heard people reference the verses and I think I know what it means, but go ahead and enlighten me on that.

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Sure. So if you give me a moment, I will open up logos and we can read it together. So now that's opening.

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The concept of the keys of the kingdom is Matthew chapter 16. So really versus 13 through 20.

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And like I said, I really wanted to hit this and I realized as I was putting my sermon together, I was like, okay, I'm about the usual page count for my sermon and I'm already going to have to trim some stuff out, which may get a little more technical than I have time to deal with.

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And so unfortunately I had to kind of just allude to it and not really touch it in the sermon, but now we can.

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So I open up my Bible software here. I probably should turn off dark mode so people can actually read that at home.

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Let's see. Right. Okay. I have to restart. That's funny. So Matthew chapter 16, while that's opening,

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I'll give you the context. So this is the, you know, who do men say this? I am passage. And we often read that passage and we remark on, you know,

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Peter's Jesus says, spirit empowered confession of Christ as the

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Messiah, Matthew 16, 18. You know, I say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church.

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By the way, I think that the rock that's referred to there isn't Peter. That's a debate for another time.

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I'm sure, but I think a good ironclad case can be made that. Yeah, that's not Peter's being referred to there, but to the profession of faith in Christ, that's what's in view there.

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All right. Logos open here. So we can look at this passage. It's a little bigger. And then by the magic of technology,

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I can share my screen. Share screen, screen two. There we are.

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So Matthew chapter 16 and verse 13, it says when Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked the disciples, who do people say that the son of man is?

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They replied, some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, others still Jeremiah or one of the prophets, but you, he asked them, who do you say that I am?

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Simon Peter answered, you are the Messiah, the son of the living God. Jesus responded, blessed are you

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Simon, son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are

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Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. Here's what we want to get to.

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Verse 19. I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

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And whatever you bind on earth will have been bound. Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven.

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And whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. Okay, let's do some good old fashioned inductive

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Bible study here for a moment. So Jesus says, I will give to you, and we'll see if I can pull this up in the original languages.

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So it's again, personal. He's speaking to Peter and saying, I will give to you,

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Peter, and by extension to the apostles and by extension, the church, the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

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It's kind of, it's an important phrase. So we're going to highlight that for a moment. This language of the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

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Let's cause all kinds of debate. If you know Roman Catholics, they would argue that this is one of the proof texts for the supremacy of the

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Catholic church, because they would say, well, the Catholic church through Peter has been given the keys of the kingdom.

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I don't think that's what Jesus meant. Even remotely. I think the key comes to us in the next phrase, because he says, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven.

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And whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. The point

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I believe that is being made here, which I think is critical to this whole issue of church government is that there is an authority given to the church through its proclamation of the gospel to open up the doors of the kingdom, as it were to sinners who will repent and believe.

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And if sinners will not repent and believe, then on the basis of God's word, the church has the power to shut those doors.

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Yeah, this same language comes up again in relation to the church.

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Funny enough, in Matthew chapter 18, Matthew chapter 18, we all know this passage as the church discipline one, but again,

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Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18. I like that. Jesus is truly.

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I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.

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Well, the context here now is church discipline. And he's saying that essentially whatever decision the church makes regarding, remember what we're doing in church discipline is we're basically saying that this person, until they demonstrate repentance, we're treating them like they're not a believer.

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Well, Jesus's point here is very simple, that whatever the church on earth says about this person, if they're doing church discipline biblically, heaven recognizes that because it's in line with what heaven says.

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Church discipline is not man's idea. It's God's idea. Yeah. So if we are agreeing with God's idea, then everything is kosher.

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And the same thing is with whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. If we see repentance, according to what the

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Bible says, we welcome that person back. That binding decision is now loosed and the person can return.

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Not a problem. And so this language of the keys of the kingdom refers to the authority that is vested in the church.

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And I would argue specifically in the local church, when it comes to the proclamation of the gospel and the practice of discipline, it's a reference to the authority that the church has to open and to close, to welcome and to remove.

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And so when we think about church membership, one of the critical things in church membership is the act of membership.

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When a church accepts people into membership, we can rightly understand that as the exercise of the keys of the kingdom.

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Again, no individual carries those keys. Sorry, Roman Catholicism. That is given to the church because again, the church is the only entity that God recognizes in that way.

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And so when I talk about the, or when I allude to the keys of the kingdom, that's a whole teaching in itself. And maybe someday

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I'll get a chance to do that, where we can kind of unpack how this works itself out, even in the early history of the church.

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So yeah, like I said, that's a, we need like a whole other show just to get into that, but that's kind of a basic introduction to that.

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The power basically to receive and to remove both in the preaching of the gospel and in the exercise of discipline.

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All right. Well, thanks for that, Kofi. And just to comment on that, like that's, that's a pretty big deal when we hear words like authority.

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Sometimes people have a negative connotation to that, but this is actually a really God glorifying good thing.

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And in regards to church discipline, that's what the end goal of hopefully restoring a person as well.

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Absolutely. So can you talk about that a little bit? Like people have so many misconceptions and I think it's because the culture doesn't like, you know, authority or discipline and those kinds of things.

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I'll save the authority discussion for the next episode because the next message is going to be how the church is led.

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Okay. So I'll save the authority discussion for that. I will talk about the discipline part for a moment. In fact, what

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I will do is since I have Logos open, I'm going to read a section from, get to it.

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I want chapter 26 on the church. So this is a 1689. Again, a very helpful summary of any number of Christian doctrines.

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And so there's a particular section I'm looking for. Okay. That's not the one

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I'm looking for. Shoot, shoot, shoot.

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There's a particular section I'm looking for where it talks about the nature of discipline in the church. I read it just this afternoon in my paper copy.

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I should have brought that in there with me, but I did not. Let's see. Live podcasting folks.

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Let's see here. Okay. This is about the work of pastors. Okay. That's not the one

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I'm looking for. I'm looking at the right one. It may be turning up a blank on this one, but it's either 1610 or was it, there was a booklet

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I recommended in this week's study guide, the glory of a true church. It might've been that I was reading just as we were preparing for today, but in one of the two, let me put back our regular,

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I will stop sharing for just a moment. My mouse is going nuts. Oh, there we go.

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Stop sharing. So there's this language that is used of the discipline of the church. And the fact that where you have sin in the local church that are, that is not dealt with, that is basically before somebody who is sinning and does not care that they're sinning.

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The church has an obligation for the sake of the purity of the church. This is going to bug me now.

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Give me a moment. Let me see if I can search this here. You know how I get, if I can't find things that bugs me.

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That really is going to bug me now, but be that as it may.

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When we talk about church discipline, just discipline is not done capriciously. It is not done with a desire to basically ruin the lives of people at will.

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That's not the point. So Matthew chapter 18 that we didn't get to look at.

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In fact, I will put the screen back on so we can read that. I know that's definitely in the Bible. Share screen.

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Screen number two. Share. In Matthew chapter 18.

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Oh, it's right here. There's a process that Jesus himself, this is important by the way. Church discipline doesn't start with men.

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It starts with our Lord Jesus. In Matthew chapter 18 verse 15, it says, So let's pause for a second.

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You've got a process where sin takes place. You have the individual. This is step one, if you will.

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The individual goes to the person who sinned and makes plain what they've done.

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If the person genuinely repents, you leave it at that. Nobody else needs to know about that. Let me say, let me be careful when

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I say that, actually, depending on the circumstance, nobody else needs to know about that.

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I mean, if there is a crime that has been committed in some way, shape or form, of course, the authorities need to know like,

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I'm sorry. That's not for the church to determine. That's why the legal, how should

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I say, the legal powers have their role. But if it's not that and you go, you speak to individual and it's sorted.

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This doesn't need to go anywhere else. Verse 16, if you won't listen, you take one or two others with you.

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And it's not you do this one time and then you move to the next step. You might have to do this a few times. So you might have to go individually a few times.

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Verse 16, if they won't hear you take one or two others with you so that, and this is a quotation from the

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Old Testament, as you can see there, Deuteronomy 19, 15. You take one or two others with you so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses, every fact may be established.

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I will simply point out that Deuteronomy 19 is in the legal context. So whatever this is, this is not just some sort of formal or informal,

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I should say, we've got a problem. No, at this point, now you're, as it were, building up a case.

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So that's why you take one or two others with you so that they can see for themselves. Oh, okay.

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This isn't just we heard something is wrong. Like something's actually wrong. Let's go on. If he doesn't pay attention to them, now we're in step three.

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You tell the church. I would argue that that's primarily you tell the leadership of the church.

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And if they choose not to listen after that, then you, again, before the whole body, which is the next step.

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If he doesn't pay attention, even to the church, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you. That's where you get up before the church and you announce to the church, this is what's happening.

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Yeah. That's the final step. That's okay. Now we've crossed from a discipline situation to a, now we are kicking you out.

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Hmm. And again, this, this is not, we do okay.

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Step one, I did step one once at this date, right? We are moving on to step two. Now you might have to be patient with this process.

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This is not something to be entered into lightly. Yeah. And again, in God's providence,

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I have heard of cases where it got stopped at step one, got stopped at step two. It may be even get stopped at step three when the person goes to the elders and they're like, you know what?

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Yeah, that happened. I need help. Praise God. That's what we want. Yeah. This is not, let's come back to our regular screen here.

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There we go. This is not the church trying to basically lord it over somebody or to just be capricious because we can be capricious.

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Right. Every fact has to be established. Every fact needs to be established. More importantly than that, we're doing this for two reasons.

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We're doing this for the purity of Christ's church. This is not about, you know, how can

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I basically get my own back on this person, so to speak. That's not what we're doing here.

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This isn't even, this should never be done in anger. Like you may not be happy about the situation.

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And no one's saying you should pretend not to be happy when you, or pretend to be happy when you're not. None of us are saying that.

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But again, we don't do this out of anger. We don't do this out of frustration. We don't do this in terms of, you know, we ideally just want to make someone's life a misery.

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That's really not our aim. Like the aim of this is that we want ultimately for the purity of Christ's church to be maintained.

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So again, 1 Corinthians chapter 5 that we did read in the service. Remember what Paul says right at the end of that chapter? That you are to remove the evil one from among you.

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And that's a quotation from the Old Testament. The Old Testament is actually stronger. It says purge the evil from among you.

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You're removing that person for the health of the body. But not only that, you're doing that for the restoration of their soul.

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Remember that's Paul's other point in 1 Corinthians 5. That, you know, we are basically handing the person over to Satan.

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And that's a strong term. We're basically treating again, Matthew 18, like you're a non -Christian.

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We are handing you over to Satan for the destruction of the body. The idea is that there is this spiritual protection that being part of the body of believers provides you.

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And we're basically saying you are now leaving the bubble, so to speak. Again, that's a frightening thing.

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No church should do that lightly. And when churches have done it badly, I want to be honest. I think that's a stain on the

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Church of Christ when it's done badly. Because if it's done well, I like how

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Mark Dever calls it, restorative church membership. Church discipline, excuse me. What you're doing is ultimately to see the person restored and to see the glory of God preserved.

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That's what we want. And if that doesn't happen, well, God is still glorified because his people have been obedient to him.

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Even if now the church is minus one person. So here's kind of like a side question that it's kind of strumbling in my mind right now.

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Say a church doesn't have church membership and they don't practice church discipline. You know, that stuff has to happen in some other kind of way.

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Why are there churches, in your opinion, that maybe try doing that without those labels?

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Because they read their Bibles. And if you take your Bible seriously, you can't ignore that stuff is there.

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Even if you don't, more often than not, people don't want to be formal about things, which I'll be honest. It's one of these weird things about the church that I don't really claim to understand.

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Like we have this like, especially in the West, this fear. And it is what it is.

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It's a fear of formality. Almost as though if something is too formal,

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God can't be in it. We genuinely function as though God can't be in something if we've put structure around it.

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In a lot of ways, it's kind of a, I want to say it's kind of a reflection on just our culture in general, which doesn't value order and structure and that which is done well.

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By the way, I was still searching for that thing because it bugged me. Ladies and gentlemen,

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I am somebody who is, what's the term? Who has

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OCD. In fact, I don't think most people who say they have OCD actually have OCD. But it does bug me when

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I try looking for something and I can't find it. That was actually the

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Westminster Confession. Oh, nice. So I haven't forgotten your question.

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I'm going to come back to my point about structure and our dislike of structure. So the

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Westminster chapter 30 actually has a section called of church censures, in other words of church discipline.

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So it says the Lord Jesus as king and head of his church has in the church appointed, I'm modernizing as I go, a government, a government, excuse me, in the hand of church officers distinct from the civil magistrate.

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So the church has, as they would understand it, a governmental system. That's why

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I go back to Matthew chapter 18, which we can do right here through the power of technology. It sounds very legal.

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Step one, you go talk to them personally. Step two, you now go take witnesses so that the thing can be established. Step three, tell the authority.

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Step four, if the authority tries to deal with it and is not listening to you, you remove them. There is a system of government, a structure, if you will, that God has appointed in the church.

33:14

And it's different from the legal sphere. That's why you probably had the uproar in recent months regarding the

33:23

Southern Baptist Convention and a report on abuse that was released where basically there was a ton of cover ups.

33:30

And I know there was lots of discussion and debate about all of that. But let's first, second, take a deep breath and take a step back.

33:38

Why are churches trying to obstruct the civil magistrate, as the Westminster puts it, from doing its job?

33:47

I'm sorry. If you find out that there is abuse happening. Yes, the church should obviously do its spiritual side of things.

33:54

But guess what? You pick up a phone, you call the police. That's what we know. That's that's the arm of the state, excuse me, the arm of the state that is there to investigate crimes and to prosecute the offenders to rip off law and order.

34:11

Let's carry on to these offices. So the church, those office bearers in the church, the keys of the kingdom are committed by virtue whereof they have power, respectively, to retain and remit sins, to shut that kingdom against the impenitent, both by the word and censures.

34:29

So, again, what we talked about, the church has the ability to open up the kingdom through the preaching of the gospel and through restoring indiscipline and to open it unto penitent sinners by the ministry of the gospel and by absolution from censures.

34:42

As occasion shall require church censures are necessary for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren.

34:50

So, again, this is why we do this. Yeah, like we do this because we love our brethren for deterring of others from the like offenses for purging out that leaven, which might infect the whole lump.

35:01

What does that sound like? Sounds like first Corinthians five, doesn't it?

35:10

For vindicating the honor of Christ and the holy profession of the gospel and for preventing the wrath of God, which might justly fall upon the church if they should suffer his covenant and the seals thereof to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders.

35:27

For the better. And let me actually pause there for a moment. I think the Westminster, I think the

35:33

Westminster got the drop on the 1689 on this one. Again, I don't believe in the baptism of infants, so I think the

35:42

Westminster is dead wrong on that one. But I think on this, they're on the money that we do all of these things because we want to see brothers restored.

35:56

We want to deter others from doing this again in all punishment. There is both the element of active punishment and also deterrence.

36:05

The whole point of why you well, let's go. You know what? Let me not talk about the death penalty because that will really get us in trouble.

36:12

We might get kicked off YouTube. Suffice it to say, I think the death penalty is 100 % biblical for one reason.

36:20

Among many, it's a deterrent. Chances are you're not going to go do something stupid that you had no business doing if you lose your life over it.

36:29

And just to spin is kind of like that. Again, we don't use it as a threat to keep people in line. But when it happens, it should cause all of us, you know, in God's providence.

36:40

I have never been in a congregation where somebody was disciplined. Like even my church back in London didn't have their first discipline case until a good while after I left.

36:50

So I've known it. Thankfully, I've only ever known it by kind of secondhand knowledge.

36:58

And obviously for what I read in scripture, of course. Yeah. I would put it to you that when it's not done or when it's done sloppily, it communicates something that we don't take sin seriously.

37:14

And so since we don't take sin seriously, the people in the pew may not, you may not specifically say this, but the indwelling sin that remains in all of us here is this.

37:26

You know what? They're not going to deal with that. So we can get away with that. And actually discipline serves to stop the church from going through that.

37:33

And in fact, they know that it's for preventing the wrath of God, which might justly fall upon the church. This is where this gets serious for me.

37:42

Yeah. If a church doesn't practice discipline when it should, the unspoken implication here is if you don't practice discipline the way you should, you're bringing upon you the wrath of God.

37:56

Man. And I have to be honest, I have to sit there and wonder about some churches that I know personally, where discipline wasn't done well, and then chaos broke out.

38:07

And you sit there, you just think to yourself for a moment. Again, we're not in the place of God.

38:12

So we can't determine when judgment happens or when it doesn't. But you sit there and you think, was that because you mishandled that?

38:19

And God said, okay, I've had enough. And now he disciplines, because again, God disciplines individual believers, but he disciplines churches too.

38:26

Revelation chapters two and three, if you don't believe me. And so finally, the confession says for the better attaining of these ends.

38:34

So for the best way for us to achieve all of this, the offices of the church are to proceed by admonition, suspension from the sacraments of the

38:43

Lord's supper for a season, and by excommunication from the church, according to the nature of the crime and demerits of the person.

38:53

So. Again, when we talk about this thing of discipline, it's not just a, and this is the question, coming back to your original question about churches that won't call it that, or try to do something like that.

39:07

Okay, that's fine. But. I'll be honest. Even if you don't call it that, my bigger concern is if you don't practice it, period.

39:16

Yeah. If you just let people sin with impunity, you know, I've often call it the evangelical heresy.

39:23

We'll sit there and say, well, you know, God forgives and we want to be gracious. And we don't want to be too harsh and, you know, not give people room to repent.

39:33

Nobody's saying they can't repent. What we're saying is they can't continue on in the church as though nothing has changed.

39:43

And that's, again, that's a whole other set of issues to get into. But honestly, if a church says, we're not going to take the exercise of discipline seriously,

39:52

I think that church is opening itself up for some pretty massive problems down the line.

39:58

Yeah. I really appreciate that. Just kind of like,

40:04

I just wonder about that if a church doesn't have the membership level and they can't discipline them, how they get around the issue.

40:12

Like, what are the methods? Are they pragmatic, you know? Whatever it might be. So it just gets my mind turned and going.

40:19

Absolutely. So in regards to that, you know, tell us a little more about the fact that membership, it's mutual membership, even in the case of discipline and authority, that we're doing this together with one another, not in like an isolated corner somewhere.

40:39

Absolutely. So, in fact, what I'll do is I'll pull up my slides from Sunday because I'll read that definition again.

40:48

Where are we? Simple church three. Boom. Nope, this is.

41:03

Okay, that is weird. Hmm. I didn't save my slides, which is very weird.

41:11

I have it. It might be butchered a little bit. It's there. You want me to read it? Yeah, go ahead.

41:17

So I put down the church invests in your discipleship and the believer invests in the church commitments to and from each party.

41:27

It's a binding to live out the one and others. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

41:33

So when we say it's a mutual relationship, it's again, it's not just you join the church and the church gets all the benefits.

41:39

No, there are benefits that accrue to you as well as a member of the church. You have the oversight of the leadership of that church who again are tasked with shepherding care.

41:52

You also have the benefit of basically locking arms with your brothers and sisters in your discipleship.

41:58

Actually, I can open this up. Let's open up my sermon notes. Folks are about to see what

42:06

I carry with me into the pulpit. This is a scary time. That's it.

42:12

Here we go. 2 .3. So where is my definition?

42:18

There we go. So ladies and gentlemen, what exclusive this is a sneak peek at the manuscript that coffee carries into the pulpit.

42:30

This will may never happen again, but we're here now. Colorful.

42:36

Yes, I do like it colorful. It helps me to see what I'm doing. Let me do this.

42:42

I can get my cursor back here. Here we go. I will point you to this blue section over here. So this is the definition of church membership.

42:49

We gave church membership is a formal relationship between a local church and a Christian characterized by the church's effort churches affirmation and oversight of a

42:57

Christian's discipleship and the Christian submission to living out his or her discipleship in the care of the church.

43:05

So the church says we're going to give first of all affirmation. Which again is part of the keys given to the church.

43:15

So affirmation and oversight. We're going to take responsibility.

43:22

That's what the concept of oversight means. Responsibility. We are going to look over your discipleship and the

43:30

Christian in turn says yes, I'm going to submit to this body as the sphere in which God would have me to be disciple.

43:37

And so this mutual relationship we might as well scroll to that part in my manuscript since we're here.

43:45

Again, like I said on Sunday, it's the church saying we recognize your profession of faith and the desire to follow

43:51

Jesus and the believers saying I want to follow Jesus together with the people and leadership of this church.

44:01

So again, it's mutual. It's not just the church takes from you and that's that. No, the church gives and takes just as you get to give and to take certain things from the church as well.

44:11

So it's a mutual relationship. And again, it's not just a relationship to a church's leadership. It's a relationship to the members of the body as well.

44:20

So the giftings and the ministry that God has given every member you get to benefit from and the ministry and the gifting

44:28

God has given you they get to benefit from so is mutual on all levels, which is again what we read in the

44:39

Bible. Kofi, how have you benefited from church membership? How long do we have?

44:49

So I'll be brief about this. First of all, in church membership,

44:57

I've benefited just spiritually having that. You know, this is a family.

45:03

This is my family. We gather on the

45:08

Lord's Day as we gather in the week as we gather at other times. Like I'm getting to build spiritual spiritually strong relationships with the people of this body, which is a beautiful thing.

45:26

I'm also I've also benefited from having the blessing of the leadership of the churches.

45:33

I've sought to pursue ministry. I'll be honest. I don't understand guys. I really don't.

45:39

I don't understand guys who say they want to go into ministry. Oh, where's your local church?

45:45

Well, I don't have a local church. I haven't found one that I can join myself to. And I'm just like seriously, who is going to affirm your belief that you are, you know, that your aspiration to ministry is valid, that you are called to the ministry when you use that language.

46:05

Who's supposed to actually give credence to that? Because you just told me you're not part of a church. So who are the elders who will one day lay hands on you and affirm you for ministry?

46:16

Who are the elders who are tasked with training up doing that second Timothy two to ministry of seeing your faithful man and entrusting the sacred deposit of the gospel to you so you can pass it on to others?

46:30

I mean, I'm thankful for the fact that I had pastors who gave me opportunity for ministry and didn't just give me opportunities.

46:37

They were hard on me in terms of is your life in order? Is everything OK? Have you?

46:43

And there were moments where I had to be like, well, moments I had to be honest in moments where they were like, OK, brother, think long and hard about this.

46:50

Your life's not in order right now. Yes, sir. OK, like there's no end of the world, but go go sort that out.

47:00

And I'm glad I'm glad I had that. And then do we really?

47:06

I wish we had time for me to just tell story after story after story of how individual members of the individual people in the churches that I've had membership in helped me out at really tough times, you know, were there for me both spiritually and materially as the need arose.

47:26

Like I could multiply stories about that. I mean, when one of the reasons

47:32

I'm so passionate about this is because I've seen it done well, not perfectly, because guess what?

47:38

People do this, which means they're not going to be perfect. Yeah, so I have long abandoned expecting people to be perfect.

47:45

But I do believe we can do things well. And I will say to anybody who's watching this, who's skeptical about church membership, if you see it done well, trust me, you'll become very dissatisfied with anything less because you would have seen like I did for a number of years up close what it is when our body says we take life together seriously as God's people.

48:10

Both spiritually and materially. So, yeah,

48:15

I have personally benefited just from my own personal growth, growth as somebody who is aspiring to serve the

48:21

Lord from individual believers of all walks of life, being able to pour into me and the opportunities to serve my brothers and sisters in a number of ways.

48:30

Like all of those things come together for me, I'm like, you know, I can never go back to believing that church membership is either unnecessary or unbiblical.

48:40

I'm sorry. I've just seen too much at this point to kind of throw that way. Yeah. Sounds like a major blessing to be a part of a family like that and to have that ability to stir one another up to love and good works and the practice of one another's together.

48:59

Yeah. So for you saying that church membership is not giving up your personal independence and non -spiritual matters.

49:07

Mm -hmm. I understand. Like, as I said on Sunday, and I reaffirm here, I have no interest to govern people's personal lives.

49:15

Governing my own personal life is hard enough. Like, governing my own life, talk less of, like, being the head of a home.

49:23

That's hard enough. I'm not trying to take on individual decisions in your life. No. And there are some pastors who love it.

49:31

I'm not going to pretend like it doesn't happen. I said that because it does happen. You know, there are some pastors who, oh, they love being in everybody's business.

49:39

Hey, you shouldn't work there. Go work over here. Don't take this job. Take this job. Don't go here.

49:46

Like, I'm sorry, that's not your job. Yeah. You know, that's where you're in, like, that 2

49:53

Corinthians 124, not that we lord it over your faith, or 1 Peter 5, not dominating over the flock.

49:59

Like, that's where you're kind of crossing off into that territory. Mm -hmm. Again, God alone is

50:05

Lord of the conscience. I think I mentioned this last week. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and he's left it free from the commandments of men or from anything that is not necessarily contained in his work.

50:14

And in fact, to demand obedience to such things goes against reason and conscience.

50:21

So, no, I don't believe that when you become a member, you basically give up your independence and you basically now start being told and dictated what you can and can't do.

50:31

Now, as elders and leaders, we may be able to say, brother, I don't think that's wise. Mm -hmm.

50:38

But unless it's a sin issue, and at that point, OK, if I tell you, brother, this is like falling foul of God's standard and you just decide to do it with impunity anyway.

50:48

Well, that's what Matthew 18 is for. Yeah. But that's very different from.

50:54

I don't like you buying a house in that neighborhood. You need to buy a house in this neighborhood so you can benefit the church. Sorry, not my place.

51:00

Yeah, no. And, you know, I made a point on Sunday that, you know, I can't make people attend things at church, which

51:08

I can't. You know, I can't doorstep people and just be like, hey, didn't see you on Sunday.

51:17

I'm gonna need to find you for that. Like I'm not the police. Yeah. I don't have the power of fire enforcement.

51:28

Like, you know, there comes a point where I can advise. I can say, OK, brother, this is and then after a while, like if, you know, you're not listening to me on that particular front, which is biblical.

51:41

OK, fine, then I need to again begin the process of trying to reach out to you and what have you. But that's very different to basically

51:48

I'm pitching up my spiritual tent in your home and basically telling you what you can and can't do.

51:54

There was a whole movement with this in the 60s and 70s. The heavy shepherding movement where basically you you know, and there were some prominent names who are part of that.

52:06

Basically, you can do anything without going to the person who was shepherding. Don't see that in the

52:14

Bible. That to me is the definition of lording it over someone's faith. You can't make even the most basic decision without talking to me first.

52:24

And again, that's a very dangerous position to be in. So that's what I mean when I say that the church doesn't assume or take away your independence in non -spiritual matters.

52:35

I know what my remit is and I can always speak for me. I try very hard not to overstep that remit because the reality is when

52:44

I do need to step in on a situation. I'd like to step in for the right reason, not because I just felt like meddling in something that wasn't my business.

52:55

You have to exercise a lot of wisdom as to how to deal with circumstances and situations probably and even pray for yourself to go through those things and how to handle them the right way.

53:08

I've had situations even in our own church where I've had to tread carefully. And I'll be honest, sometimes

53:14

I haven't always done a good job of that. Again, this is where there's grace in the gospel and we're all learning.

53:21

There have been moments where I've been like, yeah, I didn't handle that right. That could have been handled a lot better than it was.

53:28

But there have also been moments where I've been able to say, you know what? This I don't need to intervene in.

53:37

And it either resolved itself or was no longer an issue and we were able to just leave it alone. So you're right, there's so much wisdom that needs to be exercised.

53:45

And of course, James 1 .5, if you lack wisdom, which I know I do regularly, that's what prayer is for.

53:51

Like, Lord, this is your church. I pray this prayer often. Lord, this is your church. Here's the situation.

53:57

Give me the wisdom to deal with it as you would. Yeah. And he's surprisingly fair to answer that prayer because it is his church.

54:06

Ultimately. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I like what you're saying that, you know, like if you miss a

54:13

Sunday or something one time, you're not just going to show up at the doorstep, which implies that it's not necessarily.

54:21

I like the term to use. It's not an ironclad agreement. And so with that in mind,

54:28

I guess I know we've talked about this a little bit before, but I guess what is the process? So our members know about attendance and when you would actually be concerned and then you would say something.

54:41

What is the process for that? Good question. So this is actually laid out in our church's constitution, which when you become a member, you get to copy.

54:54

And granted, I'm just saying up front, our constitution will be going through some changes. Obviously, this is a podcast for our church family.

55:02

You all know that we are in the process of ironing out some stuff with the Redeemer Gilbert, which we're very close to.

55:09

So we will be adopting a new constitution and all the members will get a copy of that. But our constitution as it stands,

55:15

I think on the new one has this as well. I have to double check it. But essentially what we say is, you know, we're not going to like kick somebody out for missing one

55:23

Sunday. Like things happen. Like I'm going to miss a Sunday, not this Sunday, the following one.

55:30

I'm going to be out of town. We're not saying you can never go out of town. You must be here 52 out of 52

55:36

Sundays, even if you're sick, even if something happens. Like, no, that would be one hypocritical because I'm not in church every single

55:45

Sunday of the year. I know for a fact you missed one because there was one of them.

55:51

You were with me when we traveled. Oh, yeah. We went to shotgun. So the reality is like, you're not going to be there every single

55:59

Sunday. I think we talk about our constitution uses the language of willfully absenting yourself.

56:07

So it's not your providentially hindered. That's the phrase I like to use. Something happens in God's providence that you can't be there.

56:16

And I would, I would put vacations and stuff like that in my category. But there's a difference between, okay, those things that you can't help it and the things where you probably could have tried harder and you chose not to.

56:32

Now, our constitution says that after about three months of that, we step in.

56:38

And even then it's a very gentle just, hey, we haven't heard from you in a while. Everything. Okay.

56:44

Can we help? You know, we're not trying to bludgeon anybody at the first port of call.

56:50

Yeah. Hashtag person may get back to you and say, hey, we, you know, oh, this was happening.

56:56

This was happening. Okay, great. Are we going to see you sometime soon? You know, that sort of thing.

57:04

If the person doesn't get back to you in that period, another three months elapses. So now this is a full six months.

57:12

And at that point, we will reach out to the person again and just be like, hey, we've not seen you in six months. You know, we've not heard from you or anything like that.

57:21

You know, if we don't hear from you by this certain date, we're going to have to unfortunately remove you from our membership roles.

57:30

Now, that doesn't mean that the person is no longer welcome at Redeemer Bible Fellowship. Right. Because we're not excommunicating them.

57:39

Yeah. But what we're saying is given that part of what you agree to a membership and our church has a membership covenant, which is fairly detailed.

57:50

Like part of what you agree to is to attend the meetings of Redeemer Bible Fellowship.

57:58

And so if you're not regularly attending and you're not contacting anybody to let us know, we're going to have to assume that your membership just lapsed.

58:07

And we can't have people on the membership roles who aren't attending. Again, there are exceptions to that.

58:14

If somebody is sick or shut in, like we're not going to keep them out of the church for that. No, they're again providentially hindered.

58:20

Yeah. But if you're not providentially hindered and let's just call a spade a spade for some people, I'm just speaking generally now for some people, you know when you're providentially hindered and when you just couldn't be bothered.

58:34

No, let's not beat around the bush. Let's not dance around the thing like no, you know, you could be there and you're not.

58:43

Now, I am not the Holy Spirit. My mother -in -law says she is not people's Holy Spirit. And I think that's a good way to put it.

58:49

I'm nobody's Holy Spirit. That quota is already filled. So I can't like force you to think about that.

58:56

But think about that if you can. Yeah. And honestly, a lot of just the ebb and flow of church life is spelled out in our membership covenant.

59:07

You know, it's in fact, I'm in Google Docs. Let's see if I can open this real quick. So we have a membership covenant that is fairly boilerplate.

59:16

There's nothing unusual about it.

59:22

Open it up here. Membership.

59:33

I can't type today. A covenant.

59:46

Here we go. And one more time. So that's our membership covenant.

59:59

And this is having been led by the Spirit of God to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and upon our profession of faith having been baptized in the name of the

01:00:05

Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. We do now in the presence of God angels and this assembly most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with the other believers of Redeemer Bible Fellowship as one body in Christ to submit to the authority of the scriptures as the authority on all issues of faith and practice to seek the

01:00:23

Lord Jesus Christ and deepen my knowledge of him through regular Bible reading prayer fellowship and the practice of spiritual disciplines and to teach our children the same to follow the command of an example of Jesus by participating in the ordinances given to his church by being baptized after my conversion and by regularly remembering and celebrating the personal work of Christ through the

01:00:42

Lord's Supper to actively again. This is the part that we're thinking about to actively participate in the life of this church by attending weekly services living in community with others participating in member members meetings and serving both within and outside of Redeemer Bible fellowship.

01:00:59

So like that's there. Yeah. And I remember when we were kind of formulating this back in 2020.

01:01:11

There was some pushback about this particular language. Oh really? Both this and in our constitution.

01:01:19

Some folks felt that this was a legalistic addition. That has always bothered me and at the time

01:01:29

I was unusually vocal and saying again and you know me

01:01:34

I try my best not to be vocal unless I need to be but on this one I spoke up and I was like look the

01:01:41

Bible commands it doesn't treat it like it's an option this you know this reference here our final week.

01:01:49

I'm going to spend a good bit of the sermon on those verses especially 24 and 25 people, you know, it's interesting people like to talk about community in churches and all of that again.

01:02:00

I'm not big on the word community. I prefer the biblical term fellowship, but that's for you know for argument sake community.

01:02:10

But the Bible assumes community by that definition. Yeah, it also assumes that the community doesn't happen on your own.

01:02:17

It happens as people gather together. And in fact it says you're supposed to do that Hebrews 10 25 all the more as you see the day of Christ approaching like we shouldn't be taking our foot off the gas when it comes to church attendance as the statistics tell us if anything, you know as anything if we as we see the day approaching like we should be putting like foot to the floor here in trying to create and attend opportunities for fellowship because we're going to need each other as times get harder.

01:02:50

Yeah. And so that's I think in terms of you know church membership.

01:02:56

I think that's just a crucial one just I call it the baseline requirements of attendance the most baseline thing you can do as a member of a church is just be there.

01:03:07

Yeah, even if you don't do anything which okay, that's not great. But even if you don't do anything just your presence as the member as a member of a church is invaluable because Proverbs 27 17 says it iron sharpens iron so one man's countenance is brightened by another yeah can't again.

01:03:32

My one of my bosses back in London Pastor Ross he put it like this in a sermon that stuck with me talking about fellowship from first John one.

01:03:40

He said listen, you can't have fellowship over a smartphone the time

01:03:46

I thought that's just cheeky but it's true like you can't like if you think a little bit hard about it.

01:03:53

Yeah, I mean I can make have a great conversation with you Eddie, but there's something about when we're in person and gathering together like at the risk of sounding really mystical which

01:04:06

I'm not God seems to bless that a little more than when we just do things over the phone or you remember 2020 when we were all on like zoom and stuff.

01:04:15

Oh my gosh horrible never doing that again so got PTSD from that.

01:04:21

I mean trauma boy. Yeah, I used to I used to I used some

01:04:27

PTSD for that. It was horrible never doing it again. They can declare like covid 10 million like five years but now we're good.

01:04:38

If I die trust in the Lord's hands, but no I'm not giving up going to church again. No, that was horrible not doing that again why because there's something about when we gather together when that spiritual reality of being gathered by God becomes physical.

01:04:53

I think there's something beautiful about that. Oh, yeah, and again, it's to our detriment that we don't take it as seriously as we should.

01:05:00

Yeah, we don't get to enjoy the fact that we're all walking testimonies of God's grace.

01:05:06

Absolutely. They'll be with one another and just the different lives that we have. Oh God, you know.

01:05:14

So yeah, it's a major blessing. I love the church for that. That's always just a good reminder. Let's see what else do

01:05:21

I have here? Almost covered everything. I guess, you know, your second point was demonstrating church membership biblically and before you did that you wanted to talk about the difference between being biblical and biblicist.

01:05:38

I know you touched on that a little bit towards the beginning. Did you want to go over that again or not?

01:05:45

Sure. So real quick. Now, let me put an asterisk by that word biblicist.

01:05:51

Yeah, because there's a sense of what which all of us are biblicist. I'll be honest.

01:05:56

I struggle with how that word has become an insult in recent years in some sectors.

01:06:03

I think we should all seek to be biblicists radically rooted in the text of scripture. Like it's not that I don't care again.

01:06:12

I I've quoted both the 1689 and the Westminster. I have a healthy respect and I can say reference from a human perspective for the where they're faithful to scripture.

01:06:25

I think they're very faithful summaries. Yeah, I love again in our services once a month.

01:06:30

We we do a catechism together. Why? Because there's value in these statements of faith that God's people had to think long and hard about crafting and putting together.

01:06:41

At the same time, they are all subordinate standards. Yeah. The thing that is the ultimate standard.

01:06:51

Oh, I took my Bible out of here and put it in the living room was reading earlier. But the thing that is the ultimate standard for all of us is the word of God.

01:07:01

Like the word of God is the final standard. And so. I say all of that because there is a kind of maybe

01:07:09

I should add a word here and unguarded biblicism or sort of wooden biblicism.

01:07:17

That basically says we can't talk about anything unless there is a specific chapter and verse.

01:07:24

Right. That I think is an unhealthy biblicism. Because what you said is only the explicit statements of scripture have found.

01:07:34

And like I said on Sunday, if you want to if you want to go there, there are some certain big doctrines that you have to basically get rid of.

01:07:41

Yeah. Now, none of us want to do that. And so we generally recognize and I will quote the 1689 on this one.

01:07:50

And I, ladies and gentlemen, actually do know where this one is because I caught it a bunch.

01:08:00

One six. There we are. The umpteenth time tonight.

01:08:06

Share my screen and for the folks at home who are listening to the audio, I will read this. So in the 1689 chapter one, section six, it says the whole counsel of God concerning everything essential for his own glory and man's salvation, faith and life is either explicitly stated or by necessary inference contained in the

01:08:26

Holy Scriptures. So everything that we need to glorify

01:08:34

God, everything we need to be saved, everything we need for belief and everything we need for life that glorifies

01:08:39

God. All of that is either explicitly stated or by necessary inference contained in the

01:08:46

Holy Scriptures. I will not have a nerd moment and show you the difference in the Westminster, which I think is a very important difference.

01:08:54

We will save that for a future show if I ever need to do it. But for now, note that they say that both of those things are the whole counsel of God.

01:09:05

And so we can't just say somewhat simplistically, in my opinion. Well, I don't see a chapter and verse for this.

01:09:13

So it can't be biblical. Like, no, you might not see a chapter and verse, but we can necessarily infer it.

01:09:22

And so that to me is when you're being truly biblical versus a sort of unhealthy.

01:09:27

And again, key term there is unhealthy biblicism. I do think there is a healthy biblicism where you know, we don't just take the confession for granted.

01:09:36

We don't just take our statement of faith for granted. No, we are specific in saying we go back to the scriptures.

01:09:50

Does the scripture teach this? And if the scripture teaches it, that's why I have no problem quoting the 1689 because where it agrees with scripture,

01:09:58

I heartily affirm it. And I would say more often than not, there are some areas I would disagree with the 1689, but more often than not, it agrees with scripture.

01:10:08

So I will quote it and not feel bad for doing so. And I can still say I'm being biblical because I can test that confession by the touchstone of scripture, if that makes sense.

01:10:19

So that's the distinction I'm making there when I talk about being biblical versus an unhealthy biblicism.

01:10:27

Awesome. Well, thanks for that, Kofi. One more thing on church membership, and I don't know if I'll have anything else after that.

01:10:35

All right. But there was one thing in particular that had to do with and I know we mentioned authorities like the police earlier, but if you have church membership, are you more likely to be protected versus if you don't have it and something legal happens, do you not have protection?

01:10:55

Do you kind of know where I'm going with that? Yes. I didn't make this argument on Sunday because I wanted to focus primarily on the biblical arguments.

01:11:07

But if you want a practical argument for church membership, the fact that especially living,

01:11:14

I'm going to be honest, as you know, and anybody who's listening probably knows or you can pick up very easy just by listening to me.

01:11:21

I'm not from around here. Born and raised in London. There's lots of love about living in America.

01:11:30

I've lived here five years now. But if there's one thing about American society I don't understand, it's how easy it is to be litigious.

01:11:38

You know what I mean when I use that word litigious? No. Is it like being peppered? No. That's a different phrase.

01:11:49

Eddie's been learning London slang from me. That's one. Yeah. No. When we say litigious, it just means everyone's quick to see one another.

01:12:02

Like I thought that was a stereotype. And then I heard enough people talk about it.

01:12:07

I'm like, whoa, like that's a bit wild. And there have been stories.

01:12:15

You know, I'm not going to name the examples because I'm not sure if those churches really want that dog up again.

01:12:21

But there have been stories of where churches have enacted discipline. The person didn't like the discipline and they sued the church.

01:12:31

And it became a problem for that local church. That's a big deal.

01:12:37

Wow. My father has a saying. It's not entirely true. It's one of those truisms, you know, it's true most of the time.

01:12:44

My father says men lie, women lie. Documents generally don't. If you come into church membership and you knew what the, like it's on paper, like there's no, you know that we talk about like gentlemen's agreement, you know, just like we kind of talk about it and shake hands.

01:13:02

Like if you actually have a process that people consent to and they fall foul of that process.

01:13:11

I think a practical argument for church membership is you protect the church from somebody who's unscrupulous. We're basically saying like this person's cut me off from my community.

01:13:19

They've caused me emotional damage to quote the YouTuber. Um, like, no, you knew what happened.

01:13:27

It was clearly spelled out to you that if you fell foul of what the Bible says in a number of areas, you could be excommunicated from this body.

01:13:37

And so I do think on a practical level, church discipline protects the church.

01:13:43

Again, this isn't our primary motivation. I wouldn't even say it's a secondary one. It's just a helpful byproduct, but it protects the church from being attacked by malicious people.

01:13:55

Let me give you an example. This might be helpful for us. And this is just a speculation of mine, but I think there may be something to it.

01:14:03

We all see what's happening with the alphabet brigade. I'll be very careful because YouTube listens very carefully, but we all know what's going on with the alphabet brigade out there.

01:14:14

What's to stop somebody? And this was a consideration my church back in London had, and they actually had to put it in their constitution.

01:14:22

What's to stop? A church, or excuse me, a church from being sued by, let's say a, you know, two guys who want to get married to dudes.

01:14:35

And they come, they call the church and they're like, we want to get married. And I just says, no, we only do weddings for our members.

01:14:47

What if you don't have that? that's a discrimination suit right there waiting for you just like there it is pick me up on a practical level you protect the church it all you have to say is well we only do that for our members well can we become members well actually we have it very clearly spelt out um as to how somebody can become a member and you don't meet that you don't meet that criteria nobody can sue you for that well at least not now anyway we'll see what happens but nobody can sue you for that so again that's a again it's not a primary level concern or a secondary level concern it's a helpful byproduct but i do think that churches in this day and age where they society our society's hostility to the gospel is becoming more and more and more pronounced i think we would do well to think long and hard about that yeah well kofi i think that's all i have unless you anything else um nope um like i said on sunday this again i think this is an important subject especially where we find ourselves geographically you know the sort of culture that comes with it and again for those who heard the message and if you haven't heard it you stumbled across this um it will be the video before this one um the sermon video will go up first and then we'll put this one up um go back and listen to that and again listen to it with an open bible and an open heart and ask yourself and i made this point on sunday which is more important my own personal independence where i can do what i want unaccountable to anyone or obedience to the lord and submission to my brothers and sisters in healthy new testament church life which is the most important and again my prayer is that as you kind of think through these things and talk through these things that the spirit of god will make that play well if that's all we've got time for this has been episode three of the uh cutting room floor podcast thank you for listening if you have any questions or queries or concerns about anything that's been raised either in this episode or previous ones you can email us at the cutting room floor actually no it's not v just cutting room floor at redeemer medford .org