Today, we continue to study the ways that we should respond to the Gospel. We’ve already seen that we should repent, confess, and be baptized. Those three responses to the Gospel have all been neglected in one way or another among modern Christians. But, today we come to a fourth response to the Gospel that is neglected more than any, and that is the response of faithful church membership. In the first sermon I preached here at Antioch and in the first chapter of my book, I asked a question: is the church necessary? When I asked that, we were just coming off all the lockdowns brought on by COVID. In fact, for the first few months of my ministry here, we still had blue-tape over every other pew. At the beginning of COVID, everything was evaluated based on one question: is it essential or not? Business owners and employees were asked to consider whether their work was essential. Gatherings of all kinds were evaluated on that break-down as well, and the same criterion was applied to the church. When President Trump asked us to give them 15 days to slow the spread, churches all over the nation obeyed. But, 15 days turned into 15 weeks and more. When we were finally allowed to open back up, the damage had been done. People were timid about coming back. Many had fallen out of the habit. Some had opted for “worshipping online” (whatever that means). But, COVID wasn’t the root cause of the collapse of faithful church membership. It only served to accelerate it. Church membership has been under attack for over a century now, and I want to suggest that it comes from a practice that most modern churches have adopted wholeheartedly and even integrated into their way of doing ministry.
To explain what I mean, let me give you an analogy. Since graduating from Auburn and moving back to Greenville 23 years ago, I have tried to have a garden every year. I was inspired, as a child, by my grandfather’s discipline and the beauty and enjoyment of his garden, and wanting to imitate him in many ways, I set out to learn the art. Most years, I make a terrible imitator, because, unlike my grandfather, I do not follow a daily discipline of tending the garden. Granddaddy would be in the garden behind my house in the early morning. Some mornings, when we got up for school, you could hear him out in the garden whistling a hymn as he worked. He spent maybe 30 minutes a day, every day, caring for his garden. It was immaculate, productive, and award winning. I, on the other hand, get behind schedule, don’t get out there every day, and the weeds grow up, the bugs get on the plants, or I miss a window for fertilizing. So, every year, one (or all) of my crops fail to produce an abundance. When I finally do get around to tending the garden, I must take drastic measures to recover it. Those measures run a serious risk of damaging the plants. If, instead of hoeing nutgrass when it first sprigs, you wait until it is a giant bunch, its roots have intwined with your tomatoes, and, if you can even get it out of the ground, you will likely damage the tomato plant too.
These two approaches to gardening say something about the church’s approach to ministry. The modern approach to church ministry is defined by revivalism. Right away, I want to distinguish between revival and revivalism. Revival is something that every believer wants, something we pray for. But, it is something only God grants. True revival is rooted in a return to God’s word (think of the revival when Josiah discovered the law in the temple and read it). Revivalism, on the other hand, is a movement that began in the early 1900s, and it emphasizes periodic, extraordinary events of mass evangelism, with calls to greater obedience and fervor from church members. Churches that practice revivalism put special emphasis on the “movement of the Spirit”, seeing an emotional response, especially when someone “comes to the altar”, as evidence of the effectiveness of this approach. The revival services themselves, and even the regular Sunday services, are arranged to create “new excitements”, as Charles Finney called them, to engender a response. Object lessons, personal stories, puppet shows, skits, interpretive dance, rap, rock concerts, fog machines, jumbotrons, baptismal slides, high-wire drummers - all of it has been tried, and with every year, the excitements must become more extreme.
Christians who grew up under this approach are taught to expect these new measures. They are taught that ordinary things aren’t as important as the extraordinary. Faithful church attendance isn’t as important as experiencing an emotional high at a revival because the regular Sunday service just doesn’t hit like a revival. They are taught a life of daily discipline and weekly communion is less important than yearly rededication and rebaptism. They are taught that their local church is less important than large gatherings where the Spirit might move. Those who practice revivalism feel that the new excitements are necessary because our society is so far gone, but revivalism is akin to my approach to gardening. It is a drastic intervention effected in response to a problem that we allowed to get out of hand from our own neglect of the ordinary things. And, like my approach to gardening, it runs the risk of doing more damage than good. In fact, I would argue that it cannot help but do more damage than good because what it neglects are the things that God has prescribed. It neglects the ordinary means of grace among the people of God for new excitements. It neglects the faithful preaching of the Word of God for personal interest stories intended to evoke an emotional response. It neglects discipleship and church discipline for the altar call.
The other approach (my grandfather’s approach) is that of faithful presence. Like my grandfather’s daily habit of gardening, ministry can be done differently than what we now do with revivalism. It can look like pastors who aren’t moved by the latest trends, gimmicks, or programs, but instead rest solely in the ministry of the Word and prayer and put all of their confidence in God’s ability to work through his means. This approach calls on the pastor and church to see the weekly gathering of the saints as both a necessary means of their discipleship and as a faithful witness to the world. Like granddaddy’s daily weeding, the church must recover the importance of church membership, including church discipline. Revivalism has created a mentality within the church that discourages local church membership and discipline. We speak of those who come down to the altar or raise their hands as having “made a decision”. Many churches assume that this decision is a legitimate entry into the church, no matter what. No questions are asked of the person’s sincerity of repentance or beliefs about Christ. This practice has deceptively inflated our church roles with unbelievers and made many of those who came to the altar twofold members of hell. Matt. 28:20 does not commission the church to make decisions. It commissions her to make disciples. That task of disciple-making is not a yearly, scheduled event. It is daily work among believers in a local church.
With all this considered, I believe that the collapse of church membership in the American church was not caused by some outside force. It was a self-inflicted wound. And, the way out of this problem is not with a new program, greater excitement, or more of a show. The way out of it is a whole-hearted commitment to the means of grace that God has given us. It is a commitment to Christ and to each other. I want you to understand that membership in a local church is a necessary response to the Gospel. In the NT, you will not find a Christian who is disconnected from the life of the church. Repeatedly, through the book of Acts, wherever the Gospel is preached, there is a common refrain - “And the Lord added to their number.” So, today, let’s consider the importance of church membership in three points: The church is essential, it is equipping, and it is edifying.
First, I want you to understand that the church is essential to your salvation. To see this, let’s read Matt. 16:13-20. This is a famous and often controversial passage because of the way the Roman Catholic Church has used it. Jesus asks his disciples to confess who he is, and Peter boldly does so, saying, “You are the Christ [Messiah], the Son of the Living God.” Jesus affirms this statement by founding his church on it. This is the first time the Greek word for church, ecclesia, is used in the NT, so it has always carried some weight in defining what the church is. The RCC says that this is the moment when Jesus established the papacy, declaring that he would build his church on the authority of Peter. They also use this passage to say that a person can only be saved through membership in the RCC, because Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom. I want you to see, instead, that the church is essential for two reasons. First, it is essential because it is built on faith in Christ. Jesus affirms Peter’s statement of faith by saying “on this rock I will build my church.” The million-dollar question rests in who or what the “rock” is. The RCC says that it is Peter. Some protestants say that it is faith. I say, yes. It is both Peter and faith. The church was built on the testimony of the apostles, of whom Peter was a major leader. The first converts to Christianity on the day of Pentecost were brought into the church through Peter’s preaching. The first Gentile believer, Cornelious, was led to Christ by Peter. So, yes, Peter is a rock in the foundation of the church. But, Peter isn’t a rock because he’s a good guy with massive talent. The Gospels and the book of Acts record innumerable flaws and foibles by Peter. No, what Jesus emphasizes about Peter is his profession of faith - “You are the Christ.” And, Jesus points out that Peter didn’t come to this through his own intelligence. It was revealed to him by the Father. So, the church is built on this profession of faith, that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. There is no other place where this is expected. You can be a member of a rec ball team without professing faith in Christ. You can be a government official without believing in Jesus. You can be a member of the country club and never mention Jesus. But, you are not a called-out-one (what ecclesia means) unless you call on the name of the Lord.
Second, the church binds the kingdom. Jesus goes on to say that he will give the church the keys of the kingdom of heaven, so that whatever the church binds on earth shall be bound in heaven. Again, the RCC says that this means that the Pope uniquely has the authority to say what saves and what doesn’t save. He has the authority to say who is in the church and who is outside of it. But notice, Jesus doesn’t say “whomever you bind or loose.” He says, “whatever you bind or loose”. The church is the vehicle through which the blessings of heaven are realized. When the church prays, people are healed. When the church shows compassion, people are made well. When the church lives faithfully, society is improved. And yes, the church binds and loosens the protection of heaven as well. In 1 Cor. 5:5, Paul instructs the church to discipline a member who was sleeping with his step-mother, saying that they are to “give him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his soul might be saved.” What on earth could Paul mean? Well, there is very clear teaching in the NT that the church protects us from the attacks of Satan. When we participate in the life of the church, we are strengthened to resist him. We have others praying for us. We have pastors who keep watchcare over us. But, when the church casts us out, we are left to fend for ourselves, and Satan will destroy us.
This brings me to my second point: the church is equipping. For that, turn with me to Eph. 4:11-16. Here, Paul gives us three benefits of the church: its gifts, its good, and its growth. First, he says that God gives good gifts through the church. What are those gifts? Verse 11 says that God gives apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors to his church. I am a gift from God to you because I have been called by God to shepherd and teach you. I protect you from false teaching. I prepare you to face the world. And, I work to grow you up to maturity. I want you to notice what Paul does not say here. He does not say that God gave us Facebook. He doesn’t say that he gave us Christian books. He doesn’t even say that God gave us the Bible. He gave us pastors and teachers. I point this out because Christianity has never been a single player game. The idea of “me and my Bible” is not a NT concept. Rather, we are to be taught by the gifts that God has given through the officers of the church.
Second, see the good of the church. Paul says that these gifts of the church do something for us: they equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ. Pastors are called, according to 2 Tim. 4, to preach the word, in season and out of season. My primary work is not to be an administrator, a caretaker, or a counselor. My primary work is to equip you to do those things by faithfully preaching the Word of God. I was so pleased to hear some of our church members pointing out that the speakers at the crusades we recently had told a lot of stories, but they didn’t really preach the Word. One member even told me, “Preacher, we don’t want you doing that.” That warmed my heart because there is a constant pressure to conform to that sort of revivalist preaching - tell a bunch of jokes, grip the heart strings with a passionate story, say some radical things that make everyone under the tent feel like they aren’t saved. Folks, that ain’t preaching! It’s performance, and it should not be tolerated by the church. You don’t need me to stand up here every Sunday and tell some gripping story that turns your heart in one way or the other. You need the Word of God, because in that you will be equipped.
Third, see the growth of the church. In verses 14 and 15, Paul says that pastors should equip the saints for a reason - so that they won’t be children but will grow up. And, he gives the measure of maturity. Childish Christians are those who are tossed about by every whim of doctrine. Children are easily deceived by smooth talking, charismatic speakers. Children are moved to change their mind about the doctrines of the church because of an emotional appeal from a person who claims that they felt the Lord move and that justifies the abandonment of Scripture. Mature Christians know what they believe and why they believe it, and they can defend it against these false teachers.
Finally, see that the church is edifying. For that, turn with me to Heb. 10:22-25. The book of Hebrews is written to a church under immense pressure to leave the faith and go back to Judaism. The persistent call of the book is not to forsake Christ. There are plenty of warnings as to the consequences for doing so, which you’ll find if you continue to read past verse 25. But, there are also encouragements given as to how we can persist in the faith. One way that we do that is through the life of the church. Notice the language in each verse. They all begin with the phrase “Let us.” It doesn’t say, “you each should”. It is a call to the church as a body. So, to persist in the faith, there are four things we should do as a church. First, we should draw near. Draw near to what? That’s revealed back up in verse 19 - we draw near to the holy places by the blood of Christ. In other words, we draw near to God through the church. Second, verse 23 says that we should hold fast to our confession. How do we hold fast? Through the church. Third, verse 24 says that we should stir one another up to love and good works. Here is where the church is most evident. You can’t stir one another up in your personal devotion. You can’t do it listening to a podcast or watching Facebook Live. You can only stir one another up by being in fellowship with other believers in a local church. Lastly, verse 25 says that we should not neglect meeting together, and even more so as the day of the Lord approaches. The local gathered body of believers is essential to our walk with Christ. We are equipped and edified by it. Faithful church membership is a necessary response to the Gospel.
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