Requirements #2: Knowledge, Profession, Experience

Introduction to Church Membership Requirements and Review of Previous Sermon

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, April 22, 2001, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:13 Now will you follow as I read a portion of the Word of God to which reference will be made tonight, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. In this relatively brief chapter I shall read in its entirety 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 1.

0:38 Paul and Silvanus and Timothy unto the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your worship. Work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ before our God and Father. Knowing, brethren, beloved of God, your election, how that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance,

1:23 even as you know what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia. For from you has sounded forth the Word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to Godward is gone forth, so that we need not to speak, but in every place your faith to Godward is gone forth, so that we need not to speak, but in every place your faith to Godward is gone forth, so that we need not to speak, for they themselves report concerning us what manner of entering in we had unto you,

2:07 and how you turned unto God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

2:28 In our continuing examination of the biblical precepts and principles, that are embodied in our church constitution, I want to pick up our study tonight precisely at the point that I put it down this morning. However, for the benefit of those who were not with us this morning, let me briefly sketch in some of the terrain that we covered in our study of the scriptures this morning. Having completed our consideration of what the scriptures and our constitution state regarding the purpose of our study of the scriptures, we began this morning to take up the important subject of the requirements for membership in the church.

3:13 And the first thing I attempted to do this morning was to persuade you of the critical importance of this subject. And I sought to awaken that sense of its importance by making this statement, that as a general rule, the God-prescribed purpose, for the church, and a God-prescribed standard for membership in the church, will stand or fall together. Then, in order to put all of this study in this area into a cohesive analogy, I set before you the imagery of the church as a house with a front door and a back door,

3:57 and then sought to show you from the scripture that the people of God, have the stewardship of the handle on both the front door and the back door of the church. And though the recognized leaders within the church must, as a dimension of their leadership, give biblical direction to God's people in this matter of opening the front door and opening the back door, they do not have the ultimate responsibility for that activity. God has placed it. God has placed it.

4:33 That is, those who are within the house have the right and responsibility under God to open the front door to all to whom it should be opened, to keep it shut towards all to whom it should be shut, and likewise with the back door, which is another subject, the door of church discipline. And in wrestling with this matter, I suggested that if we can keep two questions before us, in the context of that analogy, it may be helpful to hang the biblical materials on those questions.

5:12 Question number one is, who has a right and a responsibility to seek admission to a biblically ordered church? What credentials must someone be prepared to present at the front door and say, based upon these credentials, I seek admission to the church? And then the second question is this. Whom does a biblically ordered church have the right and responsibility to receive into its membership?

5:44 What credentials ought we as the people of God to expect? What credentials ought we to demand be present in anyone seeking admission to the church? And both questions must be answered from the one who knocks, and those who either, recognize the knocking, and respond positively or negatively, they must both be looking at a common source of authority. If someone spins out of the stuff of his own notions, what his credentials ought to be, and those within the house spin out of their own preferences and notions and past experiences what they think the credentials ought to be,

6:28 there will be no meeting of the mind. At best, you will have a clash of carnal, carnal perspectives. But when both the one who knocks, and those who hear the knocking, and under God are deciding whether the door should be opened or closed, when they are looking to a common external source of authority, even the word of God, then both can act and react in the confidence that what is done is well pleasing to God. Isaiah 8.20,

6:57 To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, there is no light in them. Having then set that framework for our study, we then began to take up the first of the seven requirements for membership listed in our church constitution. Our constitution reads as follows. Any man or woman shall be eligible for membership in this church who, and then further qualifications are listed.

7:30 And then we went to a number of passages, to demonstrate that the language, man or woman, is indeed biblical language. And that when we see any specific, definitive description of who comprise the apostolic churches, we saw from a number of passages that it was men and women, not people generically, not males and females more specifically, but men and women. And I call that, the requirement of age or maturity. Now that's condensed into a few minutes, what we considered at considerable length this morning.

The Second Requirement: Gospel Knowledge, Profession, and Experience

8:12 Now we come to take up the second of those requirements for membership in a biblically ordered church. And it's what I'm calling the requirement with respect to gospel knowledge, profession, and experience. The requirement with respect to gospel knowledge, and experience. The requirement with respect to gospel knowledge, profession, and experience.

8:36 Let me read how it is expressed in our constitution. Any man or woman shall be eligible for membership in this church who professes repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, who manifests a life transformed by the power of Christ. And those statements, any man or woman who professes repentance, faith, and manifests a transformed life, can be subsumed under this heading, the requirement with respect to gospel knowledge, profession, and experience.

9:21 These two requirements bring us, as I say, to these issues of what we know about the gospel, what we profess in relationship to the gospel, and what we profess with respect to God, to the gospel, and what we evidence of having experienced the power of the gospel. And what we are asserting in our Constitution, and what I hope to demonstrate is indeed a reflection of a comprehensive grasp upon the scriptures, is that no one should be admitted into the church who is ignorant of the fundamental facts of the gospel. No one should be admitted into the church who cannot with his own lips, or in the case

10:04 of some of our hearing impaired people, with their signs, profess that they have experienced repentance and faith. And thirdly, no one should be admitted who does not manifest something of the power of the gospel in terms of its life-transforming influence. So with me now, take up your Bibles as we consider, first of all, a sampling of the evidence that repentance and faith are biblical requirements in a biblically ordered church with respect to its front door.

Biblical Evidence for Repentance and Faith (Acts 2)

10:45 And having looked at a sampling of the evidence for repentance and faith, we'll then look at a sampling of the evidence that there must be the manifestation of a transformed church. Turn with me, please, as we consider that first subheading a sampling of the evidence that the profession of repentance and faith are indeed biblical requirements for admission into a biblically ordered church. We go back again to Acts chapter 2, a very pivotal passage whenever we're discussing the matter of the church. There on the day of Pentecost, when the church, in its full order,

11:28 the new covenant blessing is born, we have so many helpful principles set before us. I remind you of what we saw in another life this morning. While Peter is preaching, in the midst of his preaching, people come under such conviction that they cry out in the middle of the sermon. I said to several last Lord's Day evening, when at several points in the ministry there was a very heightened sense of God's presence, and I said how I longed for the day when in the midst of Pentecost, when the church was in the middle of the sermon, when the church was preaching, someone is so overcome, not by worked up emotion or the contagion of feelings, but by having dealings with God, that they would have to cry out in the middle of the

12:11 sermon, Pastor, please stop. What must I do to get right with God? That's what Peter experienced on the day of Pentecost. He's preaching, and in the middle of his preaching, it says, verse 37, when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do?

12:32 What you preached has been brought home with power by the Holy Spirit to our consciences. You've charged us with killing Messiah. We see that's what we did. With our wicked hands and with our manipulative pressure, we are responsible for the blood shedding of Messiah, the very Messiah whom God has raised from the dead and exalted in his right hand, who has sent forth the Holy Spirit, validating.

12:59 That he is indeed Lord and Christ, the very Jesus whom we crucified. What shall we do? And Peter gives them, I call it a band-aid response to get their spirits quieted down. And Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

13:24 For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off. Even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto him. And apparently at that point, their initial heightened agitation is quieted, and they're ready to listen to more preaching. And so Peter goes on preaching.

13:43 Look at verse 40. And with many other words, he testified, and, and you have a different tense of the verb here, he was exhorting them. He was continually exhorting them, and the focus of his exhortation. His exhortation was this, save yourselves from this crooked generation.

14:04 He is not telling them, save yourself from your sins. He's just told them, you must repent. You must have a change of mind with respect to yourselves, and to God, and to Christ, and to sin. Implied in the demand that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ unto remission of sin, is that Christ crucified has been preached.

14:27 Remission of sin is only in Christ. Faith is implicit in that direction. So he's called them to repent and to believe. And now with much more exhortation, he explains the implications of repentance and faith, of attachment to Jesus Christ visibly and publicly.

14:46 The marvelous promises that God has given to those who repent and believe. And with many other words, he preaches to them on what it will mean for them consciously and deliberately. To turn away from the mindset of their fellow crucifiers of Messiah. To turn away from the mindset that was trusting in bloodlines and ritual for generations.

15:13 And now to cast themselves wholly upon a crucified, arisen, and an exalted Messiah who is Jesus of Nazareth. And so he continues preaching and lays out what it means to be identified with Christ, and with his people. Now then, verse 41, Then they that received his word, what word? The entire message.

15:40 They that received his word, his message. His message about their sin. His message about God's activity in conjunction with Jesus of Nazareth. His message about the need of repentance and of faith, and the promise of the gift of the Spirit.

15:57 They embraced his word. His message. They then that received his word, his message, were baptized, and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship in the breaking of bread and the prayers. What does this passage teach us?

16:22 Well among many things it shows us that when the door of that first Pentecostal church of Jerusalem was opened on that Pentecost day, it was opened to a people who were brought to a knowledge and a professed experience of repentance and faith. A knowledge of basic gospel facts. A profession of repentance for God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And what God did on that day, he continued to do as we read in the book of Revelation.

16:56 He continued to do as we read in the book of Revelation. He continued to do as we read in the book of Revelation. He continued to do as we read in the book of Revelation. He continued to do as we read in the book of Revelation.

17:00 He continued to do as we read in the book of Revelation. And the next paragraph, the concluding statement, God's people were found praising him, having favor with all the people, and the Lord was adding to them day by day those that were being saved. That brings us then to the question, how do people come into and remain in the saved state? The Lord was adding to them, bringing into the church, those that were being saved.

17:28 The Lord was adding to them, bringing into the church, those that were being saved. The Lord was adding to them, bringing into the church, those that were being saved. The Lord was adding to them, bringing into the church, those that were being saved. Well we answer and say people are saved when they are rescued by the mighty power of God, given new hearts, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, yes.

Biblical Evidence for Repentance and Faith (Acts 20 & 16)

17:40 But from the human standpoint, people are saved when they move out of themselves toward God through Christ in the old path of repentance and of faith. Turn to Acts chapter 20 where Paul summarizes his own preaching. there at Ephesus in the presence of the Ephesian elders. And note how dominant and central are these elements of repentance and of faith. Paul is able to look these leaders of the church in

18:15 the eye and say in verse 18, you yourselves know from the first day that I set foot in Asia, after what manner I was with you all the time, serving the Lord with all lowliness of mind, and with tears, and with trials which befell me by the plots of the Jews, how I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house. And here were the two great pivots. They lay at the very foundation of his ministry, testifying both to Jews and to non-Jews, to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord and to God.

18:59 Jesus Christ. And when he said that, they didn't scratch their heads and look at one another and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait a minute, Paul, just, will you mind, we're going to have a little caucus here. You're saying that we will remember that from the first day you came among us, you served the Lord with humility, that we know, with compassion, with tears, that we know, but wait a minute, Paul, repent, repent, what's that you said you were, no, nobody scratched their head and said, what's he talking about? When he said, testifying among you, repentance towards God, if one could put his ear to their hearts and listen to the echo that went out of the heart, it would be something like this, yes, Paul. Well, do we remember when you first

19:43 indicted us with the scriptures that we were sinners accountable to the God of heaven and that we were idolaters pouring out our devotion to Diana, God of the Ephesians. Well, do we remember the conviction that came when you laid upon us the word of God, the word of God, the word of God, what we were as creatures accountable to God, responsible to obey his law, and we lived in disobedience to that law, in thought, in word, in deed, how well we remember when you served heaven's indictment against us for our sin, and how well we remember when you pointed us not to rituals and to alternate dead idols, but you told us about Jesus of Nazareth,

20:27 who went about doing good. Yes, Paul, we remember how you urged upon us faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. He could say with a good conscience and know that he had the affirmation of the conscience of his listeners, I testified to you, repentance towards God, and we remember how you urged upon us faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ,

21:00 and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And to do that biblically means there is substantial gospel content in the message. And so when he tells these people, this is how you were brought into the orbit of the knowledge of God in Christ, how you were brought into the church, and eventually were brought into leadership of the church there at Ephesus, there was in the heart of each of those men a vivid remembrance of these fundamental emphases in the apostles' ministry.

21:40 Similarly, we find him back in Acts chapter 16. We're just looking at some specimen passages, seeking to see from the scriptures what was it that people had to know and profess and experience to be brought into the apostolic churches. Paul and his companion Silas, or their

22:00 sister, Philippi. And they are thrown into prison because they've shriveled up the pockets of some people who are making money on the demon-possessed girl, and they delivered her from her demonic powers, and this jailer has beaten them, thrown them into the inner prison. And at midnight, instead of having a pity party or plotting on how they're going to get the Roman government to release them, they're having a hallelujah meeting. They're singing praises to God at midnight. No doubt the jailer heard that, and it's as though God is

22:30 God said, I like what my servants are doing. I'm going to shake this place up, and God sends an earthquake, and the shackles fall off, and the prisoners are all loose, and the jailers seeing this manifestation of the power of God in the physical realm, having already seen it in the moral realm with these men who didn't curse at him when he beat them. These men who could sing praise to God at midnight instead of grousing and complaining about how unjustly they were treated. He had seen the power of God in the moral and ethical response of these men. Now he sees it in

23:04 the physical realm, and he comes to an awareness. We don't know how much he heard of gospel truth, but he knows one thing. I'm not right with this God who's shaken up the jailhouse. And so he's ready to take his life when he sees the shackles have fallen off, assuming all the prisoners have split, and that he himself would forfeit his life at the hands of a Roman court for this dereliction of duty. He's ready to kill.

23:28 He's ready to kill himself and plunge a knife into his own breast. And Paul and Saul and Paul and Silas come in and say, do yourself no harm. Verse 28, Paul cried with a loud voice saying, do yourself no harm. We are all here, another moral miracle. When prisoners have their shackles loose from them

23:49 and the gates are thrown open, what are they going to do? They're going to split. God restrained even these prisoners. And now this man says, I can't take this anymore.

23:59 He called for lights and springing in and trembling for fear fell down before Paul and Silas brought him out and says, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Did he mean saved from death at the hand of the Roman government? Obviously not. Because Paul's response indicates that Paul understood that saved, he meant saved from the wrath of this almighty, powerful God, from the judgment of this God who saved him. And he said, I can't take this anymore. I can't take this anymore. I can't take

24:30 this anymore. I can't take this anymore. I can't take this anymore. I can't take this anymore. I can't take this anymore.

24:30 His power has been demonstrated. I don't want to meet him as a naked sinner. I want to be saved. And Paul gives him a mini response and says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And not only you, but your house, that is those within your house who will believe upon

24:53 Christ, they too shall be saved as you will be saved if you believe on the Lord Jesus. So what does Paul do then? Doesn't immediately baptize him. We read in verse 32, and they spoke the word of the Lord unto him with all that were in the house. They gathered them together in the

25:16 wee hours of the morning and they are speaking the message of the Lord. They're telling him who Jesus is, what he has done, what sinners must do to lay hold of the benefits of the work of Christ. They spoke the word of the Lord unto him with all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. The one who perhaps had administered their beating now

25:42 washes from their backs the very fruit of that beating. And he was baptized, he and all his immediately, and brought them up into his house, set food before them, and rejoiced greatly with all his house, having believed in God. Now, that phrase, having believed in God, does that mean having believed in some kind of a power out there that's bigger and better than myself? No. Believing in God in terms of the context. The God who does

26:14 moral miracles in people who are unjustly condemned and beaten and sing praises at midnight. The God who shakes the jailhouse and restrains the prisoners from running away. And we know that from the next paragraph, the next day, all the prisoners are back in place. And the jailer is back at his assigned place. Not at all threatened by the Roman authorities.

26:36 The God who has sent his son, Jesus, on behalf of sinners. The Jesus who dies and rises again from the dead on the third day and who was seen, whose resurrection was validated. The Jesus who has sent forth the Holy Spirit. His having believed in God was not some innocuous motion of his mind and heart.

27:00 It was not to some undefined being out there and up there and over there. It was faith in God in the context of repentance towards that God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how people are saved. So that when we think of the question, to whom shall we, for whom shall we open the front door of the church, we have biblical warrant to say, men and women who profess repentance toward God, faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And that will

27:42 involve a fundamental knowledge of gospel realities, a fundamental knowledge of what it means to repent and to believe, and a fundamental willingness to profess that repentance and faith with one's mouth. Or if we take a totally different approach, remember all I'm trying to do is give you some specimen samplings from the New Testament that the knowledge and the profession of repentance and faith are essential requirements for membership in a biblically ordered church.

Discipleship and Union with Christ as Evidence of Knowledge and Profession

28:21 When Jesus gave the Great Commission, as recorded in Matthew 28, what was the task of his followers? Here, more particular, the eleven apostles, called the eleven disciples in verse 16 of Matthew 28. Having directed attention to his own absolute authority in every realm of being, all authority has been given unto me in heaven and upon earth. Going therefore, here's to be their goal, make disciples of all the nations. They are to go forth with a view to making disciples of all the nations.

28:56 They are to go forth with a view to making disciples of all the nations. They are to go forth with a view to making disciples of all the nations. Those who will come to the feet of Jesus to learn of him. Those who will bow before Jesus to be governed by him.

29:11 Those that will come to trust in Jesus to be saved by him. That's what a New Testament disciple is. They are to make disciples of all the nations, and when they are made disciples, they are to be baptized, now notice, into the name of that God who is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Whether or not that's a baptismal formula is a debated matter. We use it as the formula many in the church have from the time of the New Testament documents.

29:44 We use it as the formula many in the church have from the time of the New Testament documents. But what is important is not so much whether we use the formula. It's the thing itself that is vital. When people are made disciples, of whom are they made disciples?

29:59 They are made disciples of Jesus. Jesus Christ, but not in terms of a Jesus-only mentality. They are made disciples of the Lord Jesus in terms of having come into a saving relationship with the one true and living God who is Father, who is Son, and is Holy Spirit. And if that professed attachment to this God is to be something other than an empty ritual and a sham, then it clearly indicates that people have come to some fundamental knowledge of this God, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, that the Son was both sent

30:44 and willingly took the place of the substitute of sinners. And though he had a true humanity, he slept, he wept, he groaned, he bled, he died, he is nonetheless the second person of the God who is the Son of God. That Jesus was raised from the dead, seated at the right hand of the Father, and he sent another comforter, he sent the Holy Spirit, not another God, but another person within the Godhead. How can anyone be intelligently incorporated into a saving relationship to this God who is utterly

31:22 ignorant of him? And so I say that when we ask the question, what are the credentials that must be presented at the end of the day, we must first ask the question, what are the credentials that must be presented at the front door? Not only the age and maturity can question, is this a man or a woman, a young man perhaps, a young woman, but a man or a woman, is there a profession of repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ? Is there some evidence that they have sufficient knowledge of the fundamental elements that comprise gospel truth?

32:03 We could approach this question in the following way. When we open up our Bibles and get inside the mind of those who were chosen of God to write the letters to the new churches, when they thought of the churches, how did they view them in their essential essence as churches? Well, I'm just going to give you a couple of specimens. You can read the others and see them for yourself. But when Paul thinks of the church at Corinth, notice

32:29 how he describes his understanding of their identity. 1 Corinthians 1.1, Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and Sosthenes our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified, set apart in Christ Jesus, called saints with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours. How does he view the church? He views it,

33:03 as a company of people that gather at this geographical location called Corinth, but they are a people set apart in Christ Jesus. He views them as a people in vital union with Christ. They are not just part of a visible, tangible community of people there at Corinth who would receive the letter and have it read. They are a people who have invisible relationships as well.

33:33 But very real and foundational. They are in Christ Jesus. That becomes the key phrase concerning the identity of the membership in a New Testament assembly. Turn over to Philippians and we will see it again. And we're skipping over several of the epistles.

33:53 This is just specimen evidence. Paul in Timothy, Philippians 1.1, servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus that are at Philippi with the overseers and the deacons. So he envisions a real company of real people with real overseers and real deacons.

34:16 That's their visible, physical identity. But now he views them in their essential spiritual identity in this way, to all the saints, the set-apart ones, in Christ Jesus. They are in union with Christ. And we can see the same thing in Thessalonians, we see it in Romans, right through the epistles.

34:39 Now we ask the question. You see how we're asking the question from different standpoints. We've asked the question, how is one made a disciple? We've asked the question, how is one saved?

34:50 Now we're asking the question, how does one get in Christ? If all those gathered are envisioned as being in Christ, how do they get in Christ? Well, they get in Christ from...

35:01 From God's standpoint, when God sovereignly regenerates people in the context of gospel light and knowledge. And when the sinner, quickened to life by the Spirit, in repentance and faith, embraces Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, he or she is incorporated into Christ. And no one is in Christ sacramentally. The Roman Church and the Lutheran Church notwithstanding, there is no water.

35:33 There is no water placed upon anyone in any circumstances that can bring the recipient of the water into Christ. No one is in Christ hereditarily. God has no grandchildren. None whatsoever.

35:50 We're not in Christ sacramentally. We're not in Christ hereditarily. We are not in Christ environmentally. We're around others who are in Christ.

36:01 Maybe sooner or later it will rub off on us. No. We get into Christ only one way. That's pneumatically.

36:10 Please turn this cassette over to continue the message. Mentally. We're around others who are in Christ. Maybe sooner or later it will rub off on us.

36:19 No. We get into Christ only one way. That's pneumatically. By the Spirit and from the human perspective, we get into Christ evangelically.

36:31 That is, when we repent and believe in Christ. That is, when we repent and believe in Christ. That is, when we receive the Gospel and lay hold of Christ as our only hope of life and salvation. Now, we've looked at it from a number of angles.

The Necessity of Elementary Gospel Knowledge and Confession

36:43 And I hope what this will do is you read your New Testament. We've given you enough clues to say, Oh, there it is. Oh, there it is again. There it is again.

36:50 There it is again. And since the Bible gives us this multifaceted view, we need to read our Bibles expecting that we will see those various facets. Now, the implications I've already hinted at, but let me focus on it now. There must be some elementary knowledge of our state as sinners, or we will not see our need of Christ.

37:10 Some fundamental knowledge of God as Creator and Lawgiver, to whom we are obligated in terms of obedience to His law. There's got to be some basic understanding of the uniqueness of Christ as the God-man, of the work of Christ as dying for sinners and rising from the dead. And that's clearly taught in many passages. Again, I take a very familiar one.

37:35 Romans 10, verses 9 and 10. And I'm trying to use the familiar. We've heard them many times. If you shall confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.

37:54 Now, if that faith is to be real faith, and the confession something more than mouthing words, obviously the confession, the confession and the faith have substance to them. There is a knowledge substance to them. There is some knowledge of who Christ is, and what He did in dying, and the validation of that work when God raised Him. If you shall believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.

38:21 For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. And this text, along with others, makes it very clear that if there is saving knowledge, and saving repentance and faith, there will be confession. Or our Constitution uses the term profession. There will be a willingness to make it known that I belong to Jesus.

38:53 And I belong to Him in terms of His gracious work on behalf of sinners. Now it is for this reason that we have established a pattern in our congregation and most churches that believe what we're preaching, be they Presbyterian, be they Baptist, Independent, non-denominational, but they're trying to cut a course in obedience to the Word. With many of our Presbyterian friends, they have a two-stage of membership. They have non-communicant members.

39:26 That's the children who were christened in infancy. But where they see in their Bibles that that does not ensure saving mercy, they have a process of making them communicant members. They will have to meet with the session, what we call our elders meeting, and give an account of God's saving work, now appropriated personally to their own hearts. And whatever the process is, almost all churches have seen the necessity that the person knocking at the door saying, I believe I have Biblical credentials that warrant my being admitted, have a process by which that person sits down

40:10 with the recognized spiritual leaders, as I alluded to this this morning, and gives an account of what knowledge they have of God and of themselves and of sin and the way of forgiveness and the way of salvation and the way of life, and make it evident that they are now professing to have experienced those realities embodied in those fundamental Gospel truths. And it is the responsibility of the people of God in their interaction with such to seek to draw people out so that you may have as well some measure of substantial input

40:55 to know as best we can know without reading the heart of another, that this person knocking at the door does indeed manifest Gospel knowledge and profession. But then I want to come to my second subhead and that is a sampling of the evidence that there must be the manifestation of a transformed life and that this is a Biblical requirement for admission into a Biblically ordered church. Up till now there are many who would say I agree with everything you have said. And if someone shows sufficient knowledge of the Gospel and professes

The Requirement of a Manifest Transformed Life

41:39 to have experienced repentance and faith, who are you, who is anyone else to judge the heart, throw the door open? But you see, the devil knows everything in terms of knowledge that any one of us knows here. The devil knows more Scripture than we know. He quotes it to the Son of God.

42:02 James 2.19 says, You believe God is one, the demons also believe, and they shudder. No, it's not enough that there be knowledge and profession of Gospel realities. There must be some modicum of evidence that the life-transforming power of the Gospel has been operative in the individual's heart.

42:26 And we see that, at least in principle, back in the Acts 2 passage. When Peter summoned them to repentance, explicit, to faith implicit, in saying be baptized in connection with remission of sin that is found in Jesus. That's faith implied in that passage. He then goes on, as we saw in verse 40, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation.

42:56 In other words, if you've not come to the place where you see that where you were and where you were going and the way you were living had death written all over it, and you're ready to turn from it, don't you come and be baptized and join this crowd. They that received his word, his message, the entirety of the message, implicit again in that, was their commitment to a whole different lifestyle, a radically alternative lifestyle in their generation. Not just different when I die and go to heaven, but different here and now with respect to all that is around me. And now what we see implicit there, we find the Apostle Paul

43:39 explicitly describing in the summary of his ministry carried on throughout the whole scope of his missionary career. Acts chapter 26. Acts chapter 26. Paul is standing before Felix.

43:54 Felix tells him he's out of his tree. As much learning is turning him mad. Paul's not unstrung at all by that. He says, I'm not mad.

44:07 Verse 25 of Acts 26. Most excellent, Festus. But speak forth words of truth and soberness. For the king knows of these things unto whom I speak freely.

44:18 For I'm persuaded that none of these things is hidden from him. For this has not been done in a corner. Standing there before this potentate, unafraid, this man is declaring what God did for him and what God did through him. Now back up to verse 19.

44:35 Whereupon, O king, Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared both to them of Damascus first. That's where he went right after he was converted. He went to Damascus and he said, this is what I preached. As a relatively new Christian and directly commissioned apostle, my message has been the same from the beginning until now.

45:02 I proclaim to them of Damascus first. And at Jerusalem. Remember we read this morning? He was attempting to become a church member and people were suspicious and Barnabas had to come along and say, hey, his credentials are kosher.

45:14 Let him in. And it says he was with them, going in and out, preaching boldly. That's what he's referring to. He said, so, at Damascus, as I was a relatively new disciple of Christ and a freshly commissioned apostle, this is what I preached, there at Jerusalem, throughout all the country of Judea and also to the Gentiles.

45:35 Now listen to Paul's summary of his preaching. That they should repent and turn to God. There again, faith is implied. No man comes to the Father but through Christ.

45:47 And we know from Paul's other testimonies of what he preached, 1 Corinthians 2, 1 to 5, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 to 3, many passages he didn't preach, turning to God in some innocuous, undefined way. Turning to God in terms of God's revelation of mercy in Jesus Christ. This is what I preached, that men should repent and turn to God. Now notice, doing works worthy of repentance.

46:16 He said, I made an integral part of my preaching, not only the content of the gospel and the free offers of mercy in the gospel and the divine and gracious imperatives of the gospel, repentance and faith, but the absolute necessity of not only professing but manifesting. Manifesting. Doing works worthy, consistent with answering to the profession of repentance. This was one of his constant emphases.

46:52 When he writes to a church such as the church at Corinth, and this is one of the passages we use as a proof text in our constitution, we saw how he envisions the church at Corinth as being a company of God, of people who are sanctified in union with Christ. Well, what happened then when they were brought into union with Christ? Look at chapter 6. He says in verse 9, Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?

47:23 Those whose lives have not been manifestly transformed by the power of the gospel shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminates, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you.

47:54 But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. He said, When you came into the orbit of God's saving grace and power, objectively revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and subjectively applied by the Holy Spirit, this is what happened to you. You not only came to know certain things about the gospel and profess certain things in conjunction with your relationship to the gospel, you experienced the life-transforming power of the gospel. And don't be deceived.

48:38 If you think because you maintain your knowledge of the gospel and your profession of the gospel and you don't manifest the ongoing power of the gospel, you're deceived. You'll not enter the kingdom. And that must be made plain to people on the front steps. On the front steps.

Evidences of Transformation in Thessalonica and Ephesus

48:56 We end up what we have in evangelical churches across our country, droves of so-called carnal Christians who have a basic knowledge of the gospel, who have an open profession of the gospel, but have no manifest transformation of life by the power of the gospel. And then the passage we read in Thessalonians. This will be our second to the last, our penultimate passage. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 1.

49:27 Paul, seeing this group in the same way that they are in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, We give thanks to you, making mention of you in our prayers. And as we do, we remember without ceasing these three dominant graces, your work of faith, your labor of love, patience of hope. Now abide at these three, faith, hope, love. He said, Those graces we saw manifested in you, knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election.

50:02 Now how in the world did Paul come to know the election of the Thessalonians? And one of those experiences, when he said, He was caught up into the third heaven, did God say, Here, Paul, come here, come here, come here. I want you to see the role of my elect. Look at those names.

50:15 Go right down. They're all people at Thessalonica. Now God didn't do that. He said, Knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election, how that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance.

50:34 And then he goes on to say, And you became, and you became, and you became. They experienced the life-transforming power of the gospel. And in that manifestation of the transforming power, their election is made manifest so that the apostle can say, Knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election, how that our gospel came to you in power. And one other passage, Acts chapter 19, That Ephesian church, to whom Paul sends the letter that we know as the book of Ephesians, what happened when they were being called out of darkness and into marvelous light

51:18 and standing one by one at the door of that assembly that God was forming there at Ephesus. Well, we read in Acts chapter 19 these words, verse 18. We're breaking right into a marvelous account of a great work of the Spirit of God that caused a societal disruption as so often happened where Paul and his companions went and preached. Verse 18, Many also of them that had believed came, confessing and declaring their deeds.

51:49 And not a few of them that practiced magical arts brought their books and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the price of them and found fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of the Lord and prevailed. You see, when Paul was preaching, repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, when he was preaching, when he said he preached everywhere, men should repent, turn to God, endure, meet for repentance.

52:18 This is what it meant in the concrete and the specific at Ephesus. You're turning from your idolatrous worship of Diana and your involvement in the occult and the magical arts then bring forth fruits, meet for repentance. Clear your bookshelves of those demonic books. And burn them.

52:36 There's the evidence. That the gospel was not just floating some wonderful notions into the head and distilling in some warm founties in the heart. It was ethical and moral in its transforming power. It made them God-centered people.

52:57 As Paul says of the Thessalonians, you turned unto God from your idols to serve the living and the true God and to wait for his Son from heaven. When the gospel comes in power, it makes us God-centered men and women. It makes us otherworldly centered. Our hopes and aspirations are fixed upon what will come to us when Christ returns.

53:24 That's the manifestation of the transforming power of the gospel. Now I hope I've turned you to enough scriptures to persuade your judgment that when we who are in the house hear someone knocking on the front door and we say, Sir, man, what are your credentials? We're waiting for them to say, I'm a man. I'm a woman.

53:50 Who, in this day, we have to say, and are you content with being a man and being a woman and knowing God didn't make something in between or something transferable? It's a shame, but we have to say it. So you're a man. Content you're a man.

54:10 You're a woman. Content you're a woman in your, quote, sexual preferences, in your conscious identity as image of God. You know you're a man? Yes, sir.

54:19 You know you're a woman? Yes, sir. Now we want to see credential number two. Do you have sufficient knowledge of gospel truth to give us to believe that you have experienced its power?

54:32 I believe I do. And you wait to hear, not a string of chivalrous, but something that expresses that they understand that they are creatures accountable to God, who have sinned against God, who deserve the wrath of God, for whom there is no hope but His sending, the Son of God, to die in their room instead, that they might in Christ have forgiveness of sins. And you wait to hear, do they profess to have turned from a life of self-centeredness and idolatry and the worship of their own ways, and their own standards, and their own goals, that they have repentance toward God? And do they profess faith in this Christ?

55:13 And you say, very well. We think we've heard sufficient knowledge and the clear profession of repentance and faith. But now we must ask you, what fundamental difference has it made in your life? What fundamental difference has it made?

55:25 Has it changed you from a self-centered person to a God-centered person? And you see, that's where the person who is self-centered is the person who is self-centered. And you see, that's where the person who is self-centered is the person who is self-centered. That's where the person sitting here tonight who lived an absolutely dissolute, totally abandoned life to every form of sin, and some of you who've been wonderfully sheltered from that by your Christian training, by the way God put you together constitutionally, you still have this in common.

55:57 You're both living to please yourself till you're converted. Second Corinthians 5 and verse 15 makes that abundantly clear that he died, the day who lived should no longer henceforth live to themselves. You all live to yourselves. You all live to yourselves.

56:11 If you've had repentance toward God, you're no longer the center of your world. God in Jesus Christ is. Can you tell me what difference has it made? What idols have you turned from?

56:21 What evidence is there that you are a joyful, cheerful, voluntary servant of the living God? And how does it manifest itself in your life? We have every right and responsibility to ask such questions and not to wait for any plastic, wooden, checklist response. That's where it becomes shameful.

56:41 And that's where it becomes humorous at times when we as elders are interviewing people that are knocking at the front door. We don't want to put words in their mouth. So we say, tell us, how did God bring you to himself? And often because they're trying to, I'm not quite sure what they're trying to do sometimes, but they obviously are not really being themselves.

57:04 They're giving accounts of things that really have little relevance and we sense that they're not really saying it in other contexts that weren't so formal and weren't so intimidating and sitting before Trinity's Sanhedrin. And so we try to pull it out of them. And so we'll ask this question and that question and sometimes if the person's eyes are not looking at one of us we look at one another and go like this. We don't want to put words in their mouth.

57:31 We want to see if they profess faith toward our Lord Jesus and repentance toward God. And we refuse to give a word to Jesus to give a little checklist and say, when you can come and pick all these, no, no. We want to know that this is your knowledge and your faith and your experience of the life-transforming power of the gospel of Christ. Now, as I bring the message to a close, let me make several very, I hope, helpful, I hope they will be helpful, but pointed qualifications and the final application.

Qualifications and Application for Church Membership

58:05 Here's the first qualification. Neither the Bible nor our Constitution requires that a man or woman profess a dramatic conversion experience. You hear me? Neither the Bible nor our confession requires that a man or woman profess a dramatic conversion experience.

58:28 For some, repentance and faith blossom in their hearts and lives like a flower opens to the sun. And at what point would you say it's closed? And at what point is it open? It went from closed and now it's open.

58:47 And that's the way God deals with some, particularly those who have godly nurture, godly ministry surrounding them from their mother's wounds. They may be like a Timothy who from a child, from a breath-off, from a nursing infant had known the sacred writings and they cannot trace when faith and repentance began to be internal, personal exercises, but they know right now, standing on the threshold of adulthood, I do know what repentance is. Repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ does with grief and hatred

59:32 of his sin turn from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience. That's the shorter catechism definition. And a person knocking says, that's me. I don't love my sin.

59:45 I'm warring with my sin. Sins of thought, sins of motive, sins of disposition, as well as sins of words, sins of the ear, what I've listened to that I shouldn't, where I've looked that I shouldn't. I hate my sin. I find no peace treaty with my sin.

60:01 I know the only way of forgiveness for the sin and power over the sin is in Jesus. And they say, yes, if I knew I were to die in the next five minutes, my only plea would be, God, for Jesus' sake, accept me into your presence. Jesus, your blood in righteousness, my beauty are my glorious dress. Mid flaming worlds in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head.

60:32 They have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. At what point did repentance and faith, they don't know. And the Bible doesn't say we have to know when. But that.

60:44 Not when, but that. And if the fruits of repentance are being manifest, it's because God put the roots. For the tree is known by its fruits. But the tree produces what its roots enable it to produce.

61:04 So neither the Bible nor our Constitution requires that a man or woman profess a dramatic conversion experience. That may be keeping some of you from knocking at the door who ought to. But the Bible tells us that repentance and faith is not the only way to be saved. It is the only way to be saved.

61:33 It is the only way to be saved. It is the only way to be saved. It is the only way to be saved. It is the only way to be saved.

61:55 And that's the only way to be saved. And that's the only way to be saved. So that's the only way to be saved. So first of all, the Bible tells us that we ought to profess Ephesians 4 says the church is God's school.

62:21 It's the place of maturation, where through its ministries we are built up so that we are no longer children tossed to and fro, but we come in as children. The church is not graduate school, it's kindergarten all the way to promotion to heaven. And the church is God's school in which he will teach us. And you need not be a theologian who can exegete the 1689 confession.

62:48 We ask you to read through it and to see if there is something in there towards which you have a clear and decided disagreement. We would have to work that through. We'll come to that in the implied requirements for membership in subsequent ministry. But for some of you who may be holding back, saying, I don't know what in the world I say, sitting looking in the eyes of the Sanhedrin.

63:10 I feel intimidated. All I know is that I'm a sinner who deserves to go to hell. I know that Christ has saved me, that I love him, and I want to serve him, and I want to be his obedient disciple until I breathe my last. My friend, if you're a man or a woman, a young man, a young woman, and that's true of you, it could well be you ought to be knocking.

63:34 That's why I said, who has a right and an obligation?

63:40 Word was chosen deliberately. Or you do have an obligation. If you have the credentials of God's grace. If you have the religious work, you have an obligation to come into the house.

63:54 Third qualification, if a church is opening the front door only when these credentials are produced. If a church is opening the front door only when these credentials are produced, the church will be made up of three kinds of people. Those who are truly saved, those who are unwittingly self-deceived, and those who are very clever hypocrites. Now you think about that.

64:21 If the church is monitoring the opening of the front door by these biblical principles, a man or woman, who professes repentance in faith and manifests a transformed life, the church will be made up of true disciples, unwitting, self-deceived people, who think what they are and have is the real thing, and others observing them make a judgment of charity that what they have is the real thing. And then calculated deliberate hypocrites, who for some reason want to be in the church for devious means and ends. Simon Magus, Acts chapter 8.

65:05 He saw this as an opportunity to advance his power over people as a sorcerer. So he joins the crowd and then seeks to buy the ability to impart the Holy Spirit. And Peter says, your heart is not right with God. God exposed him.

65:22 He was a calculating hypocrite. But the church obviously has unwittingly self-deceived people. You wouldn't have all the exhortations in the epistles. Be not deceived.

65:32 Let no one deceive you. Be not deceived, my brethren. And we can trust God under a balanced biblical ministry that has sufficient emphasis on self-examination, that God will mercifully expose to their own judgment the unwittingly self-deceived. And sometimes, as he did in the book of Acts, God may directly reach in and touch the hypocrites in striking ways.

66:01 God disciplined Ananias in surviving. The church couldn't exercise the back door because the church was ignorant of their sins. But God says, I see it and I'm going to deal with it. And God dealt with it.

66:13 And no church will be comprised solely of truly regenerate people.

66:21 And it's not our responsibility to try to read the hearts of men. But we do have a responsibility to expect what God has defined as these credentials. Professed repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

Final Exhortation and Prayer

66:43 So today we've come to the first two requirements for membership in a biblically ordered church. The requirement of age and maturity. More briefly, the chronological requirement. The requirement.

66:56 The requirement. The requirement. The requirement. The requirement.

66:57 The requirement. The requirement. The requirement. The requirement.

66:57 The requirement. The requirement. The requirement. The requirement.

66:57 The requirement. The requirement. The requirement. The requirement.

66:58 The knowledge, profession, and experience. More briefly, the experiential requirement. And if you sit here tonight and say, if I were to knock at the door, it would be sheer hypocrisy. I know nothing of what that repentance and faith is of which you've spoken.

67:18 I've heard you quote the passages. It's clear to me that's what the Bible says. But I'm clueless. My friend, if you've come to that conviction, there's hope for you.

67:27 You go to the God. He's brought you to that conviction and say, oh, God, you know my heart. And as best I know it, under the preaching of the word, I'm clueless. I've been in church all my life.

67:40 I may have been baptized as a child and I'm on a church roll. But when the preacher talked about seeing yourself as a sinner, seeing Christ as the only hope of sinners, abandoning yourself to Christ, having the center of your life changed, I know nothing of that. If God's shown you that and you're conscious of it, thank God. He's not let you go on in your la-la land of indifference to the state of your soul.

68:08 And I beg of you to give yourself no rest until you know that you, by God's grace, have repented toward God and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And I say to my fellow elders and to my fellow church members in this place, the day, the day we begin to be satisfied, with credentials other than these that we've addressed tonight, may God have mercy on Trinity Church. Because when people come into the church, polite and nice and well-spoken as they may be, who know nothing of repentance and faith in a transformed life,

68:50 you've got people devoid of the spirit, with no spiritual appetite. And the carnal appetite will begin to manifest itself in what you do in your worship. How much time is allocated to the worship? How much time is allocated to the worship?

69:01 How much time is allocated to the reading and exposition of the scriptures? How we will relate to one another? And it won't be long before carnal social interaction will be the dominant glue that holds whoever sits in this place together. May God help us to be good stewards of the front door as well as of the back door.

69:21 Let's pray.

69:27 Our Father, we again are thankful that you have given us your holy word to be a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway. And we pray. We pray that as we've reflected upon these very central issues of who should be admitted into the church, that you will persuade our judgment with the word and give us the moral fiber to insist that your standards will be maintained by your grace and by your power. Lord, we pray that you will continue to take us in tow and bring us more and more into line with the scriptures.

70:07 Lord, we pray that you will continue to take us in tow and bring us more and more into line with the scriptures. That we may glorify you and be useful in our generation. Be with us now as this Lord's Day comes to a close. We pray, our Father, you would take us into our respective spheres of influence in the coming week and help us to be light and salt, ready to give answer to any who would ask a reason of the hope that is in us.

70:30 Wisely and prayerfully seizing opportunities to speak of you and of your goodness. Oh, Lord. We ask that our profession of you will be unashamed before a crooked and a perverse generation. Hear then our prayers and receive our thanks as we offer them in Jesus' name.

70:50 Amen.