Biblical Basis for Membership

Driving home: It is not old Adam dressed up in respectable Reformed Baptist clothing. It is not old Adam with his nature which ordinarily would stink heavily perfumed with respectability and refinement, with a little bit of aftershave…

Martin quotes the London Confession of Faith, chapter 25, paragraph 3, to acknowledge that 'the purest churches under heaven are subject to mixture and error,' providing a realistic context for the church's striving for a regenerate membership.

We are determined to strive for a membership role comprised only of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women. The words, we are determined to strive for point to the fact that there is serious intention and arduous pursuit of that intention. We are determined that speaks of seriousness of intention to strive for underscores that there is an arduous effort to follow through on that intention. However, the word strive for underscore, our realistic awareness that in the language of the London Confession of Faith, chapter 25, paragraph 3, the purest churches under heaven are subject ...

6:45 - 7:57 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It is not old Adam dressed up in respectable Reformed Baptist clothing. It is not old Adam with his nature which ordinarily would stink heavily perfumed with respectability and refinement, with a little bit of aftershave…

He uses the analogy of 'old Adam dressed up in respectable Reformed Baptist clothing' or 'heavily perfumed with respectability' to contrast superficial religious activity with true regeneration, which is a 'gracious, powerful invasion of the soul by the life of God.'

In other words, when I speak of the truly regenerate, I'm speaking of those in whom God has wrought this amazing, all-encompassing work of spiritual renovation and transformation that is likened to a new birth, to a new creation, to a spiritual resurrection. It is not old Adam dressed up in respectable Reformed Baptist clothing. It is not old Adam with his nature which ordinarily would stink heavily perfumed with respectability and refinement, with a little bit of aftershave of religious activity. We're not talking about that. We're not speaking of the old acts of the new man like the old man....

11:00 - 12:10 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It is not old Adam dressed up in respectable Reformed Baptist clothing. It is not old Adam with his nature which ordinarily would stink heavily perfumed with respectability and refinement, with a little bit of aftershave…

The 'dependantness of the child, the guilelessness of the child' is used to illustrate the nature of conversion, emphasizing a turning from self-sufficiency to utter dependence on God.

And whatever is involved in that imagery, except ye be converted and become as little children, surely something of the dependantness of the child, the guilelessness of the child. Children don't often involve in the kind, the kind of role-playing that we do. And those other characteristics, even in sinful children that make them so attractive. Unless you be converted and become as, in other words, a turning away from a whole lifestyle of self-sufficiency and independence and role, to one who is a little child, acknowledging his utter dependence upon his God for all things, determined to live t...

12:39 - 13:59 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The first major category of evidence is presented: a regenerate membership is the prophesied state of the New Covenant community. Martin expounds Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36…

He references Dr. Barnard's first heart transplant to highlight the miraculous, internal nature of God taking out the 'stony heart' and giving a 'heart of flesh' in regeneration.

I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh. Long after Dr. Barnard or Bernard performed the first heart transplant, guarded by his mighty grace and power, I will take out the stony heart. I will give you a heart of flesh.

27:12 - 27:31 Read in full sermon

Driving home: In the new covenant, God says, my people will be truly regenerate and truly converted.

The analogy of a bird released from a cage, splitting the air with its wings and singing, is used to illustrate that obeying God is not a burden but true freedom for the regenerate heart.

You will walk at me when I have breathed unto all thy commandments. Is it a burden for a bird to be set loose from a cage to split the air with its wings and to sit in the treetop and sing its beautiful song? No, that's freedom. My friend, it is no burden to obey the God who made me for himself.

28:36 - 29:00 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second major category is that a regenerate membership is the assumed state of the New Covenant community. This is evidenced by the descriptive names and titles (e.g…

He uses the parables of the wheat and tares and the net of fish to challenge the idea that the visible church is inherently a mixed community of regenerate and unregenerate, arguing against their improper application to church membership.

Open up your Bible with me to the opening words of five different epistles. And we'll just read them and see how evident this is. As Paul contemplates writing to the new covenant community at Rome, the church at Rome, how does he envision that community in his own mind? Does he envision it as a field in which there are many stalks of real wheat and then many, many stalks of tares?

31:35 - 32:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Take seriously the truth that the church in its membership should be comprised of those who are truly regenerate and manifest ongoing fruits of the same.

The story of Ananias and Sapphira is used as a powerful example of God's severe judgment on hypocrisy within the early church, demonstrating His expectation of genuine conversion among His people.

After the fact of regeneration and when a hypocrite rose up in the midst God said this is such an anomaly. I want to make a message clear for the rest of the history of the New Covenant community. God took the first two hypocrites in hand and he disciplined them. He killed Ananias and Sapphira.

50:30 - 50:56 Read in full sermon

Driving home: To determine to have none but the truly great generate and genuinely converted in the church membership is not fanaticism. It's not an unbiblical idealism nor is it an oppressive ecclesial ecclesiological position.

He quotes the London Confession of Faith on 'visible saints' to show that the church is to be comprised of those who profess and live out the gospel, validating the church's position on regenerate membership.

Our confession of faith state so clearly in its chapter on the church in these very words. You get the right page all persons throughout the world professing the faith of the gospel and obedience unto God by Christ according to it not destroying their own profession by any errors averting the foundation or unholiness of life. They hold to the truth. They walk in the truth are and may be called visible saints and nations to be constituted those who profess the faith of the gospel in those who live in the faith of the gospel of such of the churches to be comprised. That's no novel position. John...

52:55 - 54:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Make sure that you're coming forward for membership not because of peer pressure, social peer acceptance, or the possibility of getting a husband or wife.

He quotes John Owen's definition of an 'instituted church of the gospel' as a society of persons 'called out of the world' by the Word and Spirit, reinforcing the regenerate nature of the church.

What is an instituted church of the gospel? Here's his answer a society of persons called out of the world or their natural worldly state by the administration of the word and spirit onto the obedience of the faith or the knowledge and worship of God in Christ joined together in a holy bed or by special agreement for the exercise of the communion of Saints in the do observation of all his ordinances in the gospel. What is a church in its biblical sense? It is the society of people called on with their natural children.

54:05 - 54:46 Read in full sermon