Is Church Membership Biblical?

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:00
Please be seated, and I encourage you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, and give your attention to the 18th verse when we get there.
00:20
So, Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18.
00:28
Today is the third in our series entitled, A Biblically Functioning Church Revisited.
00:37
And I'm calling it revisited only because this series was one that we've done in the past when we were moving away from some of the way that we used to do things and moving toward a more biblical model for church leadership and church membership back in 2008, 2009.
01:00
I can't believe that was almost ten years ago now.
01:04
Looking at those things and revisiting some of these things as a reminder as to why we have done what we've done and continue to seek to do what we're doing.
01:15
And in our last message, we discussed the structure of the church, and we said it's really not that difficult to understand.
01:22
If you think of what a biblically functioning church is supposed to look like, Christ is the head of the church, no individual man, there's no pope in a biblically functioning church, which says something about Rome, doesn't it? The head of the church is Jesus Christ.
01:42
He governs the church through His word, and that word establishes within the body two offices.
01:52
And those offices both have a distinct calling and a distinct purpose.
01:56
The first office is that of elder.
01:59
The elder is to be the teacher, the guardian of sound doctrine, the minister of the church and leading the church.
02:07
And then the deacon, who's to be the servant, the example of service within the body, and the minister to the needs of the congregation.
02:20
And out of that, we have the body itself.
02:26
So we have Christ as the head, He governs through His word.
02:29
In His word, there are only two offices, and that is that of elder and deacon.
02:32
And then you have the body of Christ, and every body in the body has a gifting that they bring to the church for the use in ministering to one another.
02:44
And that's the purpose of the structure, is that we understand why we are gathering together.
02:50
We don't just gather together once a week to hear the preaching of a sermon.
02:56
You don't just come and me shout at you a little bit, and then you leave and go home and you come back and I'll shout at you some more.
03:05
That's not the purpose of why we come.
03:08
That's part of it, because you come to be instructed in the word of God.
03:12
But the purpose that we gather for is we gather to spur one another on to good works, according to Hebrews.
03:20
It says we're supposed to encourage one another on to good works.
03:24
Because people say, well, I can sit at home and watch TV and have somebody yell at me for 30 minutes, or I can turn on the TV and hear a much better preacher than me, probably.
03:32
You can find them all over.
03:33
But why do I come to this place? Well, we come to this place because we're part of the body of Christ.
03:41
And the body of Christ, as the Apostle Paul says, a hand can't say to the foot, I have no need of you.
03:47
And the eye can't say to the ear, I have no need of you.
03:49
For if the whole body was an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? Paul says, if I was just an eye, I couldn't hear anything.
03:54
I couldn't go anywhere because eyes don't have feet.
03:58
So every body in the body has a purpose.
04:03
Ephesians 4.11 tells us, it says, He gave them apostles and prophets and evangelists and shepherds and teachers to equip the saints.
04:13
And by the way, that's you.
04:15
I never like it when I hear a Christian say, well, I'm no saint.
04:18
I know what you're saying.
04:21
But you don't know what you're saying.
04:23
Because the word saint doesn't mean what the Catholic Church has meant for it to mean.
04:29
Because the Roman Catholic Church assigns sainthood to certain people that they believe have reached certain levels of spiritual life and certain heights of spiritual accomplishment.
04:39
And they call those people saints.
04:42
But the reality is in Scripture, everyone who has been born again by the work of God, through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, has been made hagiasmos, holy, or a saint.
05:01
You've been made holy.
05:03
Not on your own and you didn't do it for yourself.
05:06
But God has made you holy.
05:08
God takes that bread and that cup and He makes them holy.
05:12
He sanctifies them, sets them apart.
05:15
That's what sanctified means.
05:18
He makes us holy.
05:19
God is able to do that.
05:20
He can do what we can't.
05:21
So you're a saint.
05:23
You might not think you are.
05:24
You might not feel like you are.
05:25
But feelings ain't what makes what is.
05:28
That was Calahanian for those who...
05:33
You got it.
05:34
Okay.
05:35
Your feelings don't determine who you are in Christ.
05:38
You are a saint.
05:39
And the purpose of the ministry of the church, particularly that of the elders, the pastors, and the teachers of the church, is to equip the saints, that's you, for the work of ministry.
05:52
Ministry means service.
05:55
That's all the word means.
05:56
And you're supposed to serve one another in accordance with the gift that God has given you.
06:03
Well, today we're going to expand on the idea of church membership.
06:07
In fact, we're going to talk about it this week.
06:08
We're probably going to talk about it again next week.
06:09
Because church membership is so misunderstood.
06:15
In fact, a lot of churches have even gone away from it.
06:19
There are churches now that have no membership.
06:24
And I'm going to tell you why I believe that's incorrect.
06:27
From the Scripture, not just because I think so.
06:31
We're going to ask three questions today.
06:33
Number one, is church membership biblical? Number two, how has the purpose of church membership been misunderstood? And number three, what is proper church membership in a biblically functioning church? That's the three questions we're going to ask and answer today.
06:54
And we're going to start by standing and reading from Matthew 16, verse 18.
07:06
Jesus is speaking, And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
07:28
Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
07:31
I thank you for the promise that comes in this text, that you are building your church, and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
07:45
And I pray, Lord, that you would, in the time I have to preach, keep me from error, sanctify my words, keep me from trailing into obscure thoughts and meaningless babble.
08:06
Keep me focused on what you have for your people to hear.
08:11
Pray, O God, that you minister to hearts today.
08:17
And Lord, convert hearts where needed, encourage hearts where needed, and change us all.
08:27
In Christ's name.
08:41
The word church in the New Testament is often found either in the book of Acts or in the epistles.
08:52
Some have even argued that the very concept of church did not begin until after Christ died, that it was an establishment by the apostles to solidify their own authority and to produce a following for themselves.
09:12
That church wasn't an idea Jesus had, church was an idea his followers had.
09:19
They say this, however, in great ignorance, because Christ himself spoke of the church.
09:28
He said he was going to build his church.
09:32
As we just read in this passage today, he says, I will build my church.
09:39
And the context of this passage is the confession of Peter.
09:43
Peter is at Caesarea Philippi.
09:45
Jesus has asked his apostles, who do you say that I am? I'm sorry, he says, who do the people say that I am? And they said, well, some say you're Elijah, some say you're Jeremiah, others say you're a prophet.
09:56
And Jesus says, but who do you say that I am? And Peter said to him, the good confession, this is often the confession I ask for when someone comes and says they want to be a member of the church, they want to be baptized, whatever.
10:09
I said, do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? The reason for that is from this text.
10:17
He asked Peter, who do you say that I am? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
10:24
That's the good confession.
10:27
That's the confession of Peter.
10:30
And upon that, Jesus says, you are Peter.
10:34
And by the way, the word Peter means rock.
10:37
He says, you're Peter.
10:39
And upon this rock I will build my church.
10:41
Now there's been great debate down through the ages as to whether or not Jesus was saying Peter was the rock that the church was going to be built on.
10:49
And that's the whole argument of the Roman Catholics is that the Pope is the successor of Peter.
10:54
There's always a rock upon which the church is built and it's just a successive line.
10:59
And so the Pope is now the rock and the next Pope will be the next rock and that rock just sort of proceeds out of him.
11:06
I don't believe that's what this is teaching.
11:08
The Reformers never believed that that's what this was teaching.
11:10
And that particular teaching is not even really historical outside of the Roman Catholic Church.
11:19
Typically, there's one of two ways of understanding that word rock.
11:22
Either Jesus is saying you are...
11:25
In fact, the word Petra in Petra, there's two different ways of saying the word.
11:30
And it's in the Greek, there is a distinction there.
11:32
And some people say, well, Jesus is talking about...
11:34
Peter's a little rock, but the rock that he's talking about is the confession that Peter made.
11:41
That rock upon this rock I'll build my church and the confession is that Jesus is Christ, the Son of the living God.
11:46
That was typically the argument of like Martin Luther and others.
11:50
That the rock wasn't Peter, the man rock was Peter's confession.
11:56
The other argument is that Jesus is not just looking at Peter, but he's saying the apostles and the prophets.
12:01
Later on in the New Testament, it says that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
12:05
So it could be referring to that.
12:08
But that's not the point I want to argue today.
12:10
The point I want to argue today is this.
12:12
Jesus said, you're Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.
12:21
Now whether or not how we understand the word rock there, the point that I'm trying to make today is Jesus makes a very clear statement about his intent for his people.
12:31
I will build my church.
12:34
And by the way, that word church is the Greek word ekklesia.
12:45
Ekklesia comes from two, it's a combination of ex, which is where we get the word out of.
12:51
Think of exit, that's going out.
12:55
And kaleo, which means to call.
12:59
And if you think about calling someone out, it means separating them or drafting them from a group, right? You're calling them out of something.
13:09
The ekklesia is the assembly of those people that God has called out of the world into his body.
13:21
You understand? We are the ekklesia.
13:29
We are the assembly or the called out ones.
13:36
In the world, the church is represented two ways.
13:41
In the world, the church is represented by the invisible church and the visible church.
13:46
Now I could spend the rest of the sermon talking about just this, but I want to simplify it because I want to move past this.
13:51
But we have to understand this.
13:54
Every person who ever confesses Jesus Christ and is genuinely born again by the work of the Holy Spirit is made part of the invisible body of Christ that's all around the world.
14:04
And the only reason why we call it invisible is because you can't look at a person, I can't look at you and say you're part of that body of Christ.
14:11
There's no mark.
14:12
We don't receive a cross on our forehead when we become Christians.
14:17
We are baptized in accordance with our faith.
14:22
But even that doesn't automatically make someone a part of the body of Christ because there are people who are baptized who aren't saved.
14:29
Isn't that right? Aren't there people who are baptized who aren't genuinely converted? So we know that even baptism itself is not the mark of a true believer.
14:39
Baptism is what a true believer does, but it doesn't make someone a believer.
14:45
So every person who is a believer all around the world is part of the invisible church.
14:56
But Christ didn't call us to just be a member of the invisible church.
15:01
Christ called us to be part of the visible church and the visible church is made up of local assemblies that gather together under the Word of God.
15:22
You are a member of the body of Christ by faith.
15:26
But you are a member of Sovereign Grace Family Church by God's grace as well because He brought you here into this body.
15:38
And He has you here for a reason.
15:40
By the way, if you're here and you're a believer and you've joined together with this church, you are here for a reason.
15:46
And it's not just to warm a pew on Sunday morning.
15:50
You're here because God has brought you with your unique gifts and your unique talents and abilities and He has brought you here for the purpose of ministering to one another within this body because you were needed here.
16:04
God is sovereign over that.
16:07
So we understand now the invisible church is all believers together.
16:11
This morning when we take communion, we take communion as a local body, but also all around the world today, there are people who are taking communion at the same time or about the same time.
16:23
We're taking communion with them too because we're all part of the same body of Christ.
16:27
That's the invisible.
16:29
This is the visible.
16:31
So now the question becomes, well, we know that you don't have to join the invisible church.
16:37
You're brought into that by grace through faith.
16:40
But should a person join the local church? Should a person be part of the local body? And that's where the first question comes.
16:49
Is church membership and a local body biblical? A local congregation, is this biblical? Is what we're doing biblical? Now, somebody might say I have a bit of a bias.
17:02
I wouldn't come and argue that it's unbiblical because I pastor the church.
17:06
Well, you make the argument for bias if you want, but I can show you from the text the reasons why I believe it's very biblical and very necessary.
17:20
But I will say this very quickly.
17:22
I understand why people question it because it has been so misunderstood and misused, misrepresented.
17:29
But we're going to get to that in question two.
17:31
How has it been misunderstood? But first, let's just ask the question, is it biblical? And I want to start by saying this.
17:39
Membership in a lot of churches is not biblical because the church is not structured biblically.
17:44
It's not led biblically.
17:45
It's not taught biblically.
17:46
And so, as a result, the membership there is unbiblical.
17:49
But the concept of biblical church membership is correct.
17:54
And I want to prove this from a text that I think you might find a bit obscure, but I think will prove my point.
18:00
Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
18:10
1 Corinthians chapter 5 and go to verse 1.
18:27
The apostle Paul is speaking to the church at Corinth.
18:30
Now, the church at Corinth was a local body.
18:34
This is not the church at Ephesus.
18:37
This is not the church at Smyrna or the church at Philadelphia.
18:40
This is the church at Corinth.
18:40
This is a local body.
18:43
And he says this.
18:44
He says, it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you.
18:49
Among who? Among the church.
18:52
There is sexual immorality going on in the church.
18:56
And of a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans.
19:02
So, not only are you doing bad, but you're doing worse than the world.
19:08
For a man has his father's wife.
19:10
The assumption here, most scholars assume, that the man has in some way become infatuated with and had a relationship with his stepmother.
19:18
Not his mom, but his stepmother.
19:20
Because it doesn't say his mom.
19:22
It says his father's wife.
19:23
It's a very specific language.
19:27
And Paul says, and you are arrogant.
19:30
Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
19:37
And he goes on in verse 3 to talk about the fact that he says, I am present in the spirit as if I...
19:44
He says, for though absent in the body, I am present in spirit.
19:47
And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.
19:51
When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
20:03
Okay, very simple.
20:05
There's a person in your assembly who needs to be excluded.
20:13
You say, for shame! He said to exclude someone from the assembly? Yeah, Jesus said that.
20:25
Jesus said in Matthew, He said if a man continues to sin even after being rebuked, and he continues to live in that sin, that he's to be what? He's to be removed.
20:34
He's to be treated like a tax collector and a sinner, essentially put out of the church.
20:39
Here is my argument.
20:41
It's very simple.
20:43
You cannot have an exclusion process without an inclusion process.
20:49
You can't exclude anyone from a group that doesn't exist.
20:55
As a result, church membership is biblical.
20:57
You can't be put out of something that you were never put into to begin with.
21:03
Does that make sense? Is everybody following what I'm saying? Church membership is biblical because there has to be a way to remove someone.
21:09
And if you don't include anyone, there's no way to remove them.
21:13
That's simple, but that's pretty easy logic.
21:18
See, there are a lot of churches today that say, We don't have an inclusion process.
21:21
Everybody just come as you are, do what you want, leave when you want.
21:23
No big deal.
21:24
You cannot exclude anyone from that.
21:27
You cannot have a process of church discipline there.
21:29
And by the way, that means they're not a church.
21:31
If there's no way to discipline within the church, then it's not a church.
21:34
John Calvin made that clear when he was explaining in his Institutes what constitutes a true church.
21:39
He said there's three things that constitute a true church.
21:41
Number one, that it preaches the gospel correctly.
21:43
Number two, that it administers the sacraments correctly.
21:46
That's the Lord's table and the baptism.
21:48
He said, but number three, that they practice discipline among their membership.
21:52
If a church does not perform those three things, it's not a church.
21:58
And guess what? That means a lot of churches today ain't real churches.
22:01
But we'll get to that later.
22:03
The point is, you cannot have an exclusion process without an inclusion process.
22:13
Only if there's an organized body could it be an assembly that could perform such an act.
22:20
And only if this body were made up of exclusively people who had professed Jesus Christ would that act make sense.
22:25
You see, here's the thing.
22:27
If you come into our church and you do not believe in Jesus Christ, but you want to hear the gospel, wonderful, stay.
22:34
We want you to hear the gospel.
22:36
If you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, stay.
22:42
Because He might use this to save you.
22:45
But if you sit professing the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, and yet you live in habitual, unrepentant sin, the church has the responsibility to call you to repentance.
23:01
And if you refuse to exclude you.
23:09
That's the biblical model.
23:10
I didn't make it up.
23:11
Jesus did.
23:11
If you got a problem, take it up with Him.
23:13
He's always listening.
23:20
You say, well, everybody sins.
23:21
Everybody battles with sin.
23:22
There's a difference between battling with sin and living in sin.
23:25
And there's a difference between sinning and being in sin.
23:30
Every one of you battle with sin every day.
23:32
I understand that.
23:33
It's one thing to battle sin.
23:34
It's another thing to say I'm going to live happily in my sin with no desire to change and no desire for repentance.
23:39
That's living in sin.
23:41
And that demonstrates a heart that has not been converted.
23:44
If you can live in perpetual, unrepentant sin, and it not affect you spiritually, emotionally, and in your conscience, then you're not saved.
23:53
You need to keep hearing this because you need to get saved.
23:57
But that's where you are.
23:58
But the person who believes they're saved and is not is a cancer within the church.
24:07
And they have to be removed.
24:11
Furthermore, allow me to address another thought.
24:15
In talking about church membership, the early church was meticulous when it came to knowing who was and who was not a member of the church.
24:25
You know, we often joke about, like, we talk about the Southern Baptists keep records.
24:31
And I went to a Southern Baptist school, so I can say it.
24:34
Don't think I'm picking on them because they're not the only ones.
24:36
But they keep very strong records of, like, who's a member of the church and who's not.
24:41
And if you've ever been a member of a Southern Baptist church, if you never sent them your letter, you're still a member.
24:45
They keep those records on the roll oftentimes for long, long periods of time.
24:49
But here's the thing.
24:50
In the early church, they kept records as well.
24:54
You say, how do I know? Well, you don't have to go there, but Acts 2.41.
24:58
So those who received the word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.
25:02
They were keeping count.
25:04
The first day they preached the gospel, 3,000 people got saved, and they knew it was about 3,000 people.
25:08
Then in the later chapter, it says, And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God, having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved, adding to their number every day.
25:23
And they were keeping up with who was being added.
25:25
They knew who was being added.
25:28
And by the time of chapter 4, it says, But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about 5,000.
25:34
They were still counting in chapter 4, to the point that they knew there were 5,000 people that had been saved.
25:43
Now, I only mention these verses because it seems apparent that someone in the church was keeping a record.
25:47
They apparently had a first century Pat Steed.
25:51
Somebody was keeping a record.
25:53
Somebody knew who was members and who weren't.
25:57
By virtue of what was happening in the church.
26:03
But as I said, the key to all this is that church membership was known, it was accounted for, and there was a formal method of entrance.
26:11
At that time, just like today, the formal method of entrance was simple.
26:14
Confession and baptism.
26:16
That was how somebody joined the church.
26:18
Confession, repentance, baptism was how a person became a member of the church.
26:23
And then there was the formal exclusion process.
26:26
But based upon these things, and I would say several other places in Scripture, the fact that Paul wrote his letters to churches indicates that they existed.
26:33
You know, the church at Corinth, the church at Rome, he's writing to local churches.
26:37
They existed.
26:38
They were there.
26:39
Membership is biblical.
26:42
But it has been misunderstood, and this leads me to my second question.
26:45
Well, how has it been misunderstood? Last week in my sermon, I mentioned the Americanization of the church.
26:55
Now, I'm an American.
26:56
I've never been anything else.
26:58
I'm a Southern American, which means I'm very patriotic, strong.
27:06
Not that Northerners aren't patriotic, and I look at my friend who's from there.
27:10
But we're very American in our mindset.
27:14
We think a lot democratic, the whole voting thing.
27:17
Everybody loves to have their one man, one vote.
27:20
But the problem is that that has made its way into the church.
27:25
And I mentioned this last week.
27:26
The church was established in a lot of places in America as sort of the town hall.
27:31
It's where people came to talk about things and vote on things and make decisions about things that went on.
27:36
So it actually came to the point where during the time of Jonathan Edwards that they had something called associate membership.
27:44
And that was where a person could not be a believer but could still be a member of the church because you had to be a member of the church to have access to certain social functions in society.
27:55
So they could come, even though they were not a believer, and take communion because access to the church was access to certain social liberties and social benefits.
28:12
You know, that was why Jonathan Edwards was put out of his church.
28:15
The greatest theologian in the history of America, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, with the greatest theological mind in the history that America has ever produced, Jonathan Edwards.
28:25
And he was defrocked.
28:28
Removed from his church.
28:29
Why? Because he had the audacity to say unbelievers shouldn't take communion.
28:37
Wow! One man, one vote.
28:43
You see? He voted out.
28:50
Mark Dever said this.
28:51
Mark Dever wrote the nine marks of a healthy church.
28:54
And he wrote this.
28:55
He said, To many people, church membership is simply a formality that gives them some right to vote at the annual business meeting and give them a sense of ownership in the church programs.
29:07
And that's really what church membership is to a lot of people.
29:10
Well, when I become a member of the church, I now have a voice.
29:13
I become a member of the church, I now have rights.
29:16
It's just like joining a country club.
29:19
I join so that I have some clout or some way.
29:24
And now I can serve on the board, or now I can be a ministry head, or now I can do this, now I can do that, now I can teach Sunday school, whatever.
29:31
It's about position.
29:34
It's about having some inroad, having a voice.
29:43
And I know some of you are screaming out, Well, that is not what I think church membership is.
29:47
It better not be because that's wrong.
29:51
That shouldn't be what we think church membership is.
29:53
But what I'm saying is that that's what it has been in the minds of many people.
30:00
If not here, it's in the minds of many people elsewhere.
30:03
Membership is about entitlement.
30:08
Once you join, you're entitled to a voice.
30:10
Well, I know many of you, like I said, don't feel this way.
30:16
But I want to ask you this.
30:20
Could you serve Christ without being a member of this church? Yes.
30:27
Could you receive the benefits of the body without being a member of the church? Well, yes, in a sense.
30:35
Could you receive prayer from the elders without being a member of the church? Yes.
30:45
Counsel from the pastor without being a member of the church? Yes.
30:49
Could you receive communion? Well, some churches, no.
30:51
So we'll say in our church, even non-members who are believers, we allow to take communion.
30:57
And that is a point of question at times.
30:59
Should that be allowed or shouldn't it? But here's the point.
31:04
What is the reason then that you join? Because you get all the benefits without joining.
31:12
What is the reason for joining the local church? And some people, again, they think, well, it's an entitlement.
31:22
So I'm going to end with this question.
31:29
If it's not about entitlement, what is the purpose of membership in a biblically-functioning church? This is the third question, and I'll answer it with this.
31:39
Church membership is not about entitlement.
31:42
Church membership is about submission.
31:46
Church membership is not about entitlement.
31:48
Church membership is about submission.
31:49
When you join the local body of believers, you're submitting yourself in three areas.
31:53
One, you're submitting yourself to the doctrinal beliefs of the church.
31:56
You've come in, you've examined what the church believes, and you say, I agree with this, I believe it too, and I submit to this teaching.
32:01
Okay.
32:02
You're submitting to the God-ordained leadership of the church.
32:05
Okay, I've examined these men.
32:06
They fit the biblical criteria of eldership, diaconate, you know, I trust them.
32:11
I'm submitting to them.
32:12
And you're submitting yourself to one another and to the discipline of the church.
32:19
It's a three-fold submission to the doctrine, to the leadership, and to the discipline of the church.
32:27
Let's look first at the doctrinal beliefs of the church.
32:29
When you join a church, that church has a specific doctrinal position that it holds.
32:36
If you ever have to leave this church for any reason, move somewhere else, hopefully you would never leave, but if you do leave and you go somewhere else, and you go to a church that doesn't have a specific doctrinal statement, don't join that church.
32:48
You have no idea what they believe.
32:56
And when you read the doctrinal...
32:58
Be more concerned about the doctrinal statement than you are about the kids' programs.
33:03
Be more concerned about the doctrinal statement than you are about the music.
33:06
Be more concerned about the doctrinal statement than you are about how good the pastor preaches.
33:10
Because even if he's a poor pastor, he's a poor preacher, he's got the Word of God on his side if he's preaching the truth.
33:16
Even if he stutters, and even if he has a high whining voice, or even if he sounds like me, I don't care.
33:22
If he's preaching the Word of God, that's the guy you listen to.
33:27
So many guys have these awesome voices, and they're preaching heresy with them awesome voices.
33:32
They're mocking the gift God gave them.
33:36
So the doctrinal position of the church becomes primary in looking for a church.
33:41
And it should be primary in our membership.
33:43
That should be the first thing.
33:45
What do we teach? I tell people all the time, I believe that there are churches down the street, and I'll use Oshawa Assembly.
33:50
Oshawa Assembly of God.
33:53
I could never join the church.
33:55
Not because I think it's ungodly people, and not because I think their pastor is ungodly.
33:59
Don't get me wrong.
34:00
But I can't submit myself to their teaching.
34:04
I could not submit myself to a teaching which I believe is unbiblical.
34:08
Not in every area, but it's enough.
34:11
And I tell people, don't come into the church hoping that we're going to change our doctrines for you, because we ain't.
34:16
Either come with a willing heart of submission, or don't come.
34:21
We're not going to change the doctrine that we believe because it might offend you.
34:26
We're either going to try to teach you, or you're going to find somewhere else.
34:32
The doctrine of the church has to be first.
34:38
Number two, the leadership.
34:41
Hebrews 13.7 is a passage that, as an elder I appreciate, is actually in the Scriptures, talking about the eldership of the church.
34:48
It says, Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will give an account.
34:55
Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
35:01
That's simple, isn't it? Don't make life hard on your leaders.
35:06
That's simple, right? Because their goal is to see your souls sanctified.
35:12
Their goal is to see you grow in your faith.
35:13
And if life is made hard on that person, then they're grieved in that, and that's not a good thing.
35:22
But for many in churches, that's untenable.
35:24
The word submission, especially to leadership in churches, is absolutely unheard of in a lot of churches.
35:30
In a lot of places, the pastor is nothing but a hired hand.
35:34
As I've told this story before, but I know of a pastor who was sitting in a business meeting, a woman from the church looked at him very specifically, and she said, don't you know that we pay you to tell us what we want to hear? We pay you to tell us what we want to hear.
35:50
You are our employee.
35:58
I don't mean to sound like a tough guy or anything, but I'll tell you the end of the story is this.
36:03
You don't ultimately have authority over me.
36:06
The word of God has authority over me.
36:08
The elders have authority over me, but if you come to me and say, we pay you so you're going to preach this, no, that won't work.
36:13
The paycheck is not my authority.
36:16
I appreciate it.
36:17
It's nice.
36:19
But that is not going to motivate.
36:21
I remember one lady years ago told me, you need to keep your givers happy.
36:24
I said, well, thank God I don't know who they are.
36:26
Because I don't know who gives what.
36:28
But you're never going to exercise authority over me with my paycheck.
36:31
It doesn't work that way.
36:34
And that's not how any man of God should preach.
36:37
But it's how many do.
36:38
I know many guys who are, I know many strong Calvinists who would never say it because they're afraid of their churches.
36:49
Well, little Mama Bishop, we don't have any bishops in here, do we? I don't want to say the only thing I'm offending anybody.
36:55
Little Mama Bishop would get upset if I said something about Calvinism, so I'm not going to say a word.
37:01
I say, are you submitted to Jesus or to Mama Bishop? Anyway.
37:09
I told you, I'll chase a rabbit.
37:10
I've got to be careful on this.
37:13
When you submit to the leadership of the church, it's a type of trust.
37:18
And we do have the responsibility to earn that trust and maintain that trust as leaders.
37:22
I'm not saying it's all on you.
37:24
It's on us too.
37:25
As a pastor, if I begin preaching that which is wrong, I'm worthy of rebuke.
37:29
If I begin to preach something that's not in line with our doctrinal statement, I'm worthy to be removed.
37:34
Absolutely.
37:39
The leadership is not beyond correction.
37:43
But the leadership does have a place.
37:45
And when you come into the church, you're submitting to the doctrinal statement, you're submitting to the leadership, and you're submitting to the discipline of the church.
37:51
And that's what sort of started this today, because we started by talking about that 1 Corinthians 5 passage where there's discipline involved.
38:01
There is times in the church where the church in an attempt to maintain purity has to separate itself from sin, especially that sin which is outright and unrepentant of.
38:14
You realize, and let me make this clear, and probably in about a month or two we're actually going to do a sermon on what Jesus said about church discipline, but let me just say this now very quickly.
38:25
There is only one thing that can have you removed from the church.
38:31
Impenitence or the lack of repentance is the only thing.
38:35
If you sin and you repent of it, we forgive you and we move on.
38:40
Now that sin may involve hurting relationships that have to be restored.
38:44
There may be some things involved in that sin.
38:48
But if you're repentant, we forgive you, we move on.
38:51
The only thing that gets you removed is the lack of repentance, you understand.
38:55
The lack of the willingness to submit to God's authority and repent, that's the only thing.
39:02
Everybody here is a great sinner, amen? Ain't it good that Jesus is an even greater Savior? We are all great sinners, that's not the point.
39:10
The point is your unwillingness to repent.
39:12
That would be the only thing.
39:14
The only sin that can have anyone removed from the church is impenitence.
39:20
And why? Because that person is a danger to the church.
39:24
I know there was a time when a person stood up in a church.
39:34
It was a lady.
39:36
She was living with a man and they weren't married and they were older and she was proud of it.
39:48
She was not broken over her sin at all that they were living together as husband and wife but they weren't husband and wife.
39:56
And she stood up in the church and she said, we're going to keep doing this and y'all can't say anything about it.
40:01
Y'all better just shut up.
40:05
Not here.
40:09
Not here.
40:12
Because the Bible says you must do something about it.
40:15
Call them to repentance.
40:17
Seek their change.
40:18
Seek their heart change.
40:20
Explain to them that it's a sin.
40:22
Love them but call them to repentance.
40:30
And that's not the only type of sin.
40:32
That's one example.
40:35
If there was a man who constantly berated and mistreated his wife, he would be called to repentance.
40:44
And if that behavior didn't change, he would be removed.
40:50
If there was a man who was living as a drunkard, if there was a man who was committing adultery on his wife perpetually and was unrepentant, I'm not limiting it to one sin, you understand.
41:09
Well, I guess I am.
41:10
The one sin is unrepentance.
41:15
My main point today is that membership in the church is not about joining a club.
41:19
It's not about receiving an entitlement.
41:22
Membership in the church is about submitting yourself to Christ, the head of the church, and submitting yourself to that authority which He has established, which is the Word of God and the people of God.
41:36
And if you're not ready or willing to submit to God, then you're not ready to be a member of a church.
41:46
When we have a submissive heart, we begin to release our desires for entitlement and we then begin to actually serve one another.
41:57
And that's what a biblically functioning church looks like.
41:59
People serving and loving one another.
42:03
It doesn't look like a country club.
42:06
It looks like a hospital because we all need to love and serve one another because we're all broken.
42:16
Each one of us brings the gift that can help restore the other and we come together as broken people to restore each other.
42:24
Hopefully this was helpful and in the weeks to come I hope that I can explain even more about what membership is in a biblically functioning church.
42:32
Let's pray.
42:34
Father, I thank You for Your Word.
42:38
I thank You for membership in the local body which is the front line of the gospel work in the world.
42:48
It's local churches bringing people to the gospel of truth, seeing them saved, seeing them baptized, seeing them live the Christian life in fellowship with other believers.
43:00
Father, I pray that today that my words have been in accordance with Your Word.
43:05
That we would never understand church membership as anything other than submission to God.
43:10
You have called us to be a part of this thing called the local church.
43:14
You've called us to submit to our leaders to encourage one another, to be taught and trained how to minister to one another that we might encourage one another to live more Christ-like lives.
43:28
Lord, we know we're imperfect.
43:31
We know that we're broken.
43:33
And yet, Lord, Your Spirit within us is driving us towards conformity to the image of Christ.
43:40
And Lord, I praise You that You have saved us by Your grace.
43:45
And Lord, if there are those here who have not received that grace, who have never been called to repentance and faith, that You would call them today.
43:55
That You would call them today in their heart.
43:58
Bring about them a spirit of correction that they might understand their need for You.
44:06
And turn in repentance and faith to the only one who can save, Jesus Christ, for it is in His name.
44:14
Amen.