Missions And Our Membership

“MISSIONS AND OUR MEMBERSHIP”

Most of you who have worshiped with us for more than a few months are aware that I was not raised in a Christian home and had only occasional brushes with organized Christianity throughout my life. That meant my confused blurring of the distinctions between being a Christian and being a Church member lasted until after I had come to Christ, and until after I had become a Church member. When I did come to Christ in 1974, the professing Christians where I worked were almost all of the Pentecostal or Charismatic persuasion. One very nice fellow was an usher for Katherine Kuhlman’s Los Angeles area crusades.[1] Another fellow was the head usher for Frederick K. Price.

Interestingly, none of the Christians at work invited me to a Church service, but they eagerly escorted me to Shekinah Fellowship in Long Beach, where Brant Baker held court.[2] Brant Baker was the full-blown faith healer type, with satin shirts and puffy pirate sleeves when not wearing a suit, the mandatory Dutch boy haircut, and the slightly effeminate lisp. I continued to attend Shekinah Fellowship until one of the Charismatic/Pentecostal guys at work introduced me to a very likable fellow named Chuck. Chuck asked me if I had a Church home, and when I responded that I didn’t know what that was, he was the first person to invite me to meet him at his Church. I attended and I don’t think I missed a Sunday morning, Sunday evening, or Wednesday service for the next eighteen months.

All the while, I had no clue about Church or Church membership. I initially went to Church because I was invited. That, my friends, is the least anyone professing to know Christ can do. Invite someone to Church. Invite them to meet you at Church. Invite them to go with you to Church. Invite them to allow you to pick them up for Church. Invite them to Church with the lure of treating them to lunch afterward. But invite them to Church. And then invite them again. And then invite them again and again and again, whether they come to Church or not, invite them. It may be that I was so faithful to Church because I know that after every service, I would be invited to someone’s home for a meal and fellowship. Every service.

When I attended the Church, I was invited to by Chuck, the pastor mentioned during that first service I was there that Christians should be baptized, so I responded and was baptized. Via baptism, I became a member of that Church without really knowing what Church membership is. Most of my new Christian friends at work worshiped in congregations that paid no attention whatsoever to Church membership, believing membership to be entirely optional for Christians and not at all called for in God’s Word.

If you look across the expanse of Christendom, Christendom being everyone who identifies as being a Christian as opposed to being a Muslim, or as opposed to being a Buddhist, or as opposed to being a Hindu, a few observations pertinent to our interest in Church membership are in order.

First, except for a very few Christian groups who resisted the growth and development of the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, and those related to them, the overwhelming majority of Christian organizations degenerated into the unscriptural practice of baptizing infants, thereby making those infants members of their communions. In territories where those communions were in the ascendancy, membership was mandatory and commenced for each infant shortly after birth.

Second, with the arrival of the Protestant Reformation in Europe, the practice of baptizing infants continued unabated, accepting without question the practice of the Roman Catholic Church from which the Lutherans and Reformed groups had sprung. So insistent were Protestants about infant baptism that they persecuted to death those who withheld baptism from their newborns, convinced that withholding infant baptism was tantamount to consigning the child to Hell by denying that child entrance into a covenant relationship with God via sprinkling.

Thus, for centuries Christendom enforced mandatory membership for everyone living in the geographical region where they were ascendant. If you lived in Catholic regions, you had to be a Catholic. If you lived in Lutheran strongholds, you had to be Lutheran. When the Spaniards and Portuguese explored the New World, they enforced this requirement with ruthless brutality. When the French and the English explored the New World, they did not, at least, not enforcing membership requirements upon native Americans.

Jumping ahead to the 19th and 20th-century advances of the Gospel in North America, two groups were noteworthy. As they had since the first century after Christ, Baptists urged upon their converts believer baptism and Church membership, but owing to the long-established Baptist conviction about soul liberty, what the Baptists urged the Baptists did not require and were strongly opposed to any laws being passed that infringed upon anyone’s religious liberty. The Protestants in North America, who had been so dogmatic during their Puritan phase in New England, eventually relaxed their views to a very benign approach to membership, reflecting their view that in the newly formed United States of America church membership had become entirely optional.

My experiences as a new Christian being with Protestants of the Pentecostal and Charismatic variety, I came to learn they not only believed Church membership was entirely optional for Christians, but they attended and served in ministries that had no notions of membership and accountability, such groups as Victory Outreach, Vineyard churches, and most Calvary Chapels. But when I was baptized in a Baptist Church and thereby became a Church member, I was overwhelmed by an interest in such matters as membership versus non-membership and concerns about what, precisely, is a Church. That is the motivation behind the book I published last year.[3]

Because this is the kickoff service of our Membership Missions Month at Calvary Road Baptist Church, this message deals with the topic of membership. During this month, you will see that missions is about more than seeking to bring individual sinners to Christ. Missions is also about establishing Churches. And you cannot have a Church of the New Testament variety without Church membership.

I will present three points for your consideration about the topic of membership in the Church Jesus Christ:

First, LET US ESTABLISH THE EXISTENCE OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

There are at least two ways in which it can be shown that there is a difference between a Christian who is a part of the assembly known as a Church of Jesus Christ and a Christian who is not a member of said Church:

First, Church membership is a concept that is shown by Church discipline. One might think that the matter of discipline in a congregation was settled by our Lord’s instructions in Matthew 18.15-20, where He said,

15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.

20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Especially important, one would think, is the phrase in verse 17, where our Lord said, “And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church.” The concept of the Church advanced in that verse can only be a congregation, with the matter of discipline applying only to one who is in some way a part of the congregation. Otherwise, you have a congregation exercising disciplinary authority over someone who happens to be attending when the assembly gathers for worship. That is hardly credible. However, some insist this verse somehow applies to all professing Christians who they maintain are part of a universal, invisible body.

The notion of the Church being a universal, invisible entity is dispelled by the fact of a congregation’s authority to dismiss a member. After all, if a universal, invisible church can exercise authority over a member and remove an unrepentant member, do you then have the universal, invisible church removing the member’s salvation? Do Protestants want to go there? They do not want to go there. Therefore they usually ignore this verse and its logical application to real life. Proof positive of Church membership shown by discipline is found in First Corinthians chapter 5:

1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.

2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.

3 For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,

4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,

5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:

10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.

11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.

12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?

13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

Peter Masters does a fine job of articulating this point about discipline and membership. He writes,

First, we learn from 1 Corinthians 5.4-5 that the local church of the first century was a properly constituted community with the power to exercise discipline. (The case in hand was the expulsion of a man for fornication.) In this passage Paul writes:

‘In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.’

This may, at first sight, seem a strange verse to prove the principle of church membership, but it is of great relevance for it describes how a special meeting of believers had the power to exclude from their company and privileges someone guilty of serious sin. This was obviously not merely a gathering, or an open public meeting, held at Corinth, including unbelievers and seekers. (1 Corinthians 14.24-25 shows that unbelievers attended the ordinary public services of the church at Corinth.) It was very specifically a meeting of disciples or believers, concerned to guard the integrity of their association.

The Corinthian sinner was ‘delivered unto Satan’, which meant that he was deprived of the comforts and blessings of spiritual fellowship and made to live outside the community of believers, back in the world, in order to bring him to his senses, and to preserve the purity of the church. In 1 Corinthians 5.12-13 the apostle continues to use the powerful language of belonging, writing:-

‘For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth.’

Insiders? Outsiders? Insiders or outsiders of what? Of a gathering only, or of formal church membership? This kind of language can only refer to a definite church membership of professing Christians, for only such a company would have the authority of the Lord to judge the conduct of other Christians.

It is clear that a church in New Testament times was a defined circle of people that you could be received into, or put out of. The people in this company had voluntarily committed themselves to the mutual fellowship, service and discipline of their Christian community. They were no longer uncommitted individualists.[4]

This matter of Church membership is a concept that is also shown by joining.

In the Acts of the Apostles we find several key references to joining a church, a significant example being Acts 9.26-28:

‘And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. And he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem.’

What exactly was Saul trying to join? Was he merely trying to attend the services of the congregation? This is surely wide of the mark, for he would not have been turned away from the preaching. The congregations of New Testament times showed outstanding courage in their public witness, and the sheer size of the Jerusalem gatherings would have made it very easy for anyone to be present at their public preaching services.

The fact that church members were afraid of Saul did not mean that they shut him out of their congregations. They were obviously doubtful of Saul in the context of close spiritual fellowship, and would not let him join them at that deeper level, although he tried to do so. Saul was attempting to join the membership of those who had professed Christ. The words of the record confirm this was the case by saying specifically that he attempted to join ‘the disciples’ - the term for the community of professing believers. It was only when Barnabas spoke for Saul before the leaders of the church that he was able to join them.[5]

The reality of New Testament Church membership, then, is established in three ways:

First, the Corinthian congregation’s action against the unrepentant Church member, as directed by the Apostle Paul, First Corinthians chapter 5, shows the pattern of membership discipline.

Second, Matthew 18.15-20, introduced by the Lord Jesus Christ, applies not to some ethereal and nebulous concept of Church consisting of all Christians everywhere but to an actual congregation of Christians addressing a matter of sin within their circle by removing someone from Church membership for refusing to repent.

Third, there is the example of the Apostle Paul seeking to join the Jerusalem Church in a sense far beyond that of merely attending public services. Paul wanted to become a part of that congregation, and they at first refused before eventually accepting him. Thereby is shown that a Church does have the authority to govern who is allowed and who is not allowed to join, with the Apostle Paul showing the desirability of even an apostle of Jesus Christ being incorporated into a Church congregation’s membership.

So, you see, Church membership is firmly rooted in New Testament teaching, even if the nuggets of truth about the Church and membership are not lying on the surface for the casual observer to see.

Next, ESTABLISHING THE METHOD OF BECOMING A CHURCH MEMBER IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

“This brings us to a study of a vital term used in this and other passages of Acts -- the word join. The Greek word literally means to glue, stick or cement two things together; and it always signifies a very close dependence or bond.[6] The prodigal son, for example, is said to have joined himself, or glued himself, to a native of a far country for employment. Here the word describes a dependent, needy employee who pledges himself to obey his employer for money.

In 1 Corinthians 6.16 this same word (glued together) is used to describe sexual relationships, even sinful ones, and in 1 Corinthians 6.17 the word is used again to describe the deep bond of total commitment which marks a true Christian (‘He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit’).

In Acts 8.29, Philip is told by the Holy Spirit to join himself (the same glue verb again) to the Ethiopian eunuch’s chariot, which he did in a sense. He embarked on a determined witness and stuck tenaciously to that seeking nobleman until saving light dawned. The glue verb is only used in the New Testament to indicated a close, special obligation or commitment, and in every passage refers to a relationship which is mutual, both parties consenting.

Another example of the use of the glue verb is Acts 5.12-14. Following the judgement of Ananias and Sapphira, many people were put off joining the church. The passage reads:

‘And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them. And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women,)’

The crowds continued to turn out to the open air preaching places, such as Solomon’s porch, but many were frightened of closer involvement after the incident with Ananias and Sapphira. There was a difference between being in the congregation and being glued or joined to the church. Such passages prove beyond doubt that the New Testament churches - our pattern for today - possessed a clear membership structure.[7]

That Churches are joined is clear. That not all Christians were considered to be part of a particular Church is also clear, thereby showing the concept of any such thing as a universal, invisible church to be invalid. It is also seen that membership is the result of the Lord adding to the Church, Acts 2.47 and that those thereby added are said by Paul to be “joined to the Lord.”[8]

Thus, to be a Christian is to be “in Christ.”[9] However, to become a Christian who is a Church member is to be “joined to the Lord” in some sense other than being regenerated or justified. So, how does one join a Church? The way the process is supposed to happen is as follows:

First, the sinner responds to the Gospel of God’s grace and trusts Jesus Christ to the saving of his eternal and undying soul. That is how an individual is justified by faith in Christ, and for the first time in his existence is at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5.1.

Next, the hopeful convert to Jesus Christ who is thought to be a qualified candidate for believer baptism, is then immersed per the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 28.18-20, to publicly display employing the ordinance of baptism his newfound relationship with Christ and His saving work. Romans 6.1-6 speaks to this:

1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:

6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

However, immersion in water, the Church ordinance of believer baptism, accomplishes far more than a public declaration of one’s new relationship with Jesus Christ based on faith. It also accomplishes the practical result of bringing a believer into close association with other Christians in the congregation authorizing his baptism as a Church member. I do not have time to verify what I have just stated. I will treat the topic of water baptism as to how a convert to Christ becomes a Church member more fully in a separate sermon.

For now, let me clearly state the Scriptural position: Members are added to the Church by the Lord Himself. He does so by the use of means. Therefore, when a sinner hears the Gospel and comes to Christ, and then when the new Christian is baptized by a congregation’s authority to undertake the Great Commission, that Christian now baptized is thereby added to the Church by the Lord when servants of the Lord are obeying the Lord by doing what He has directed them to do.

I have shown the fact of Church membership in the New Testament in this message. I have also relied upon the book written by Peter Masters, wherein he shows from the Bible that Christians join Churches. What is left for us are literary devices used in the New Testament to describe the Church congregation populated by members. Tom Terrific needs to now put on his thinking cap.[10]

Finally, Therefore, EXAMINING SOME REINFORCING PASSAGES

There are at least six New Testament passages that make little sense outside the understanding that a Church is comprised of Christians who are members in a way other Christians are not and in a way unsaved people are not, even if they without joining the Church do regularly attend to hear the Word of God preached and taught:

Galatians 2.4:

“And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.”

This verse refers to a time a Church congregation gathered to address issues that were not public, and therefore Christians who were not members, as well as unsaved people, were not permitted to observe the goings-on. Outsiders wanted to observe the private functions of the congregation, according to Paul. We should ask ourselves two questions: First, that such meetings took place is undeniable, as this verse shows. Yet on what basis were some included and others excluded except based on being a member in good standing? Second, if the congregation’s meeting was not exclusive and private why would individuals have tried to spy on the Christians who were members?

Ephesians 4.11-12:

11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

It is clear from Ephesians 4.8, which itself is a reference to Psalm 68.18, that the Apostle Paul declared that four kinds of gifted men have been given by the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet it must be asked, given to whom? Are apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers given to Christianity at large, and they are therefore completely unaccountable for what they say and do? Is that the way God does anything, without responsibility and accountability, like Benny Hinn and Joyce Meyers conduct their affairs? No. Those four kinds of gifted men are given to congregations, individual Churches of Jesus Christ. That question asked and answered, it must also be asked to whom the gifted men’s ministries and activities are to be directed? All Christians everywhere? If that be so, where is the accountability of those being trained by them? We know from First Corinthians 8.1 that knowledge by itself only puffs the learner up. What must accompany instruction is obedience in response to directions being given, duties to be assigned, and tasks to be performed. Yet how does that happen except within a congregation’s membership? It doesn’t happen apart from Church membership, and that is a serious problem in contemporary evangelical Christianity, especially in what I refer to as the freelance Christianity community.

Ephesians 5.21:

“Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”

This command from the apostle implies that believers should see ourselves as a community rather than an ill-defined gaggle, with the community coming before our whims and desires. This verse makes no practical and workable sense apart from Church membership. Who holds Joel Osteen accountable? Or Kenneth Copeland? Who holds any Church attender accountable who is not a member? No one. But who holds me accountable, or any other member of this Church? You do, and you have the members of our Church.

First Timothy 3.1:

“This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.”

You understand that the word here translated bishop comes from a Greek word that means overseer. The question is the overseer of what? A gaggle of Christians who come and go without regard for anything except their convenience? This verse makes no sense apart from Church membership.

First Timothy 3.5:

“For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?”

Here the Church is seen to be parallel to another institution, the family unit characterized as “his own house.” But what is a family? Is a family unit nothing more than a group of people who decide they want to live together, individuals who just come and go as they please? Some people act like that is what a family is, but we know better. You are either a member of the family, or you are not a member of the family, with the bishop required to demonstrate skill in ruling over one situation to be qualified to have the opportunity to take care of the other situation, the Church of God. Does this comparison between family and Church make any sense unless a Church is comprised of those who are members, in a fashion similar to family members? No, it does not.

First Timothy 5.17:

“Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.”

“Once again we must ask, how can there be ‘rule’ in a church which has no constituted membership? There could be no orderly oversight of a nation which had no proper citizens, an army without enlisted soldiers, an industry without employees, or a family without children. The will of God is clearly that there should be a spiritual family in which elders are responsible to nurture and help members, and members are responsible to pool their strengths and concern to the ministry of that family.”[11]

Understand that the vast majority of our Church’s gatherings and functions are open to anyone to attend, to engage in, to involve with, and to freely benefit from. However, the Word of God establishes that there are some things we, as a congregation, must do privately, with only certain people being involved. Who are those certain people who are involved? Are they the ones with clout who have attended Church for the longest time or who have given the most money? Not at all. They are ones who have been added to the Church by the Lord. They are the members.

Our understanding is that a person is added to the Church by the Lord when he or she comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ, is then baptized in obedience to Christ’s command, thereby becoming a member of that Church. Can a person become a member who was saved somewhere else, and who was baptized somewhere else? Do you mean like the Apostle Paul? Yes, there is a place for that in God’s Word. However a child of God comes to be a member of a New Testament Church, be it the Church in Corinth, the Church in Philippi, or one of the Churches in Galatia; membership is very important. That membership in a Church is very important is evidenced by the fact that the most serious response the Corinthian congregation could do when dealing with a sinning member’s refusal to repent was to deprive him of his membership.

Another matter to consider: If one becomes a member resulting from being added to the Church by the Lord, how serious a matter it must be, therefore, to quit the Church and go somewhere else. We know the Lord adds members to His Churches. Therefore, this matter of being somehow subtracted from the Church of Jesus Christ is a profoundly important matter for prayerful and serious consideration.

How does this matter of membership and the Church relate to missions? Real missions, New Testament missions, Scriptural missions, involves a Church starting a Church, Churches starting a Church, or Churches starting Churches. But if there are not members, there is no Church.

The starting point for us, then, to be a missionary Baptist Church, is to be right about membership ourselves and to be right about membership in Churches we are working, praying, and giving our hard-earned money to see established.

If you are a Church member, I hope you come to value your membership more than before. If you are not a Church member and would like to become a Church member, reach out to me so we can discuss the matter. I want you to become a Church member. We want you to become a Church member.

__________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Kuhlman

[2] https://archive.org/details/RevBrantBakerOfShekinahFellowshipLongBeachCA

[3] John S. Waldrip, The Church of Jesus Christ: 28 Truths Every Christian Ought To Learn, (Monrovia, CA: Classical Baptist Press, 2019), available at www.ClassicalBaptist.Press and Amazon.Com

[4] Peter Masters, Church Membership In The Bible, (London: The Wakeman Trust, 2008), pages 8-9.

[5] Ibid., pages 10-11.

[6] kollaw - Bauer, Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), pages 555-556.

[7] Masters, pages 11-12.

[8] 1 Corinthians 6.17

[9] Romans 8.1-2, 16.3, 7, 9, 10; 1 Corinthians 1.2, 30; 3.1; 4.10, 15; 15.18-19, 22, 31; 16.24; 2 Corinthians 1.21; 2.14; 3.14; 5.17, 19-20; 11.3; 12.2, 19; Galatians 1.22; 2.4; 3.17, 26, 28; 6.15; Ephesians 1.1, 3, 10, 12, 20; 2.6, 10, 13; 3.6, 11; Philippians 1.1, 13; 2.1, 5; 3.3, 14; 4.21; Colossians 1.2, 4, 28; 2.5; 1 Thessalonians 2.14, 4.16; 5.18; 1 Timothy 1.14; 2.7; 3.13; 2 Timothy 1.1, 9, 13; 2.1, 10; 3.12, 15; Philemon 6, 8,23; 1 Peter 3.16; 5.14

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Terrific

[11] Masters, page 13.

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Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church