Requirements #7: Support and Submission

Introduction: Completing Membership Requirements

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, June 10, 2001, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now, as we continue this topical series of sermons, which I've entitled, Living Together in the Father's House, we will take up our study precisely where we left off in the morning service. Having been away from this matter for four weeks, I felt that coming back to it, it would be good to seek in the study of the Word of God today to complete our consideration of what the Constitution of our Church and what the Scriptures teach us concerning the requirements for membership in this particular local church. And I've sought to hang all of the major categories of the truth of Scripture and the directives of our Constitution around that topic. That analogy of the church as a house established by God and within that house the people of God who are given a stewardship with respect to the opening of the front door and as we shall see tonight, the opening of the back door of the house of the living God. And so as we consider this issue of requirements for membership, it is not an issue for the elders alone.

1:29 I changed or added a couple of words in reading to you from John Brown this morning because he wrote as a Presbyterian and he wrote, The elders should admit none to the church but those who meet such and such standards. I changed the words to the elders should recommend to the church the reception of none but those who and then the requirements were listed. And so it is vital for you, the Lord's people, to understand the biblical requirements for membership in any church that claims to be an evangelical and Bible-regulated church and in particular those requirements that we have judged from the Scriptures in the light of nature and the general principles of sanctified Christian sense to be vital for membership in this particular congregation. We looked...

Review of Previous Requirements and Introduction of Final Three

2:29 weeks ago at the first three requirements that I described as the requirements of maturity, any man or woman, the requirement of gospel knowledge, profession and experience, any man or woman who professes repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ and who manifests a life transformed by the power of Christ, then thirdly, discipleship, baptism, and who is baptized upon profession of this faith. And then this morning we began to take up the final three categories of requirements for membership in this particular assembly. And as we entered into a discussion of those things, I stated that we must understand that these requirements are implicit and inferred in the Scriptures. They are not explicit and clearly mandated. They are not mandated by the Scriptures. Secondly, we noted that these requirements have to do with this particular local church and we are not prepared to say that every other church that claims to be a biblical church must have these specific requirements.

3:50 And then we noted thirdly that these three final requirements have a common or unifying concern and that that concern is that we must have these requirements. The first one is that the person knocking on the front door not only is of sufficient maturity to understand and to embrace both the privileges and responsibilities of church membership, has a credible profession of faith in Christ, and has been baptized, but that that person manifests a disposition of mind and of heart to integrate himself or herself into the life and ministry of the church. And then we noted what those three final requirements are that all can be subsumed under this statement of a disposition of willingness to be integrated into the life of the assembly. Our Constitution states it as embracing our subordinate standards, that is, who expresses agreement with the Confession and Constitution, the Constitution of the Church, secondly, who intends to give wholehearted support of its ministry, and thirdly, who is willing to submit to its government and discipline.

5:11 We then covered the first of these final three requirements that together comprise this disposition of mind and heart conducive to harmonious integration into the life and ministry of this congregation, namely, a spirit of willingness, a spirit of willingness to embrace our subordinate standards. I defined subordinate standards as a historical and theological term. I identified our subordinate standards as the London Baptist Confession of 1689 and the most recently revised Constitution of Trinity Baptist Church, October 1, 1995. And then I sought briefly to demonstrate biblical principles which undergird our requirement that everyone entering the Church be a person who embraces our subordinate standards. We do not require that they have the capacity to expound and to explain fully all that is in our subordinate standards. When we interview people for membership, we ask, have you carefully read our Confession of Faith? We ask, have you carefully read our Confession of Faith?

6:29 We ask, have you carefully read our Confession of Faith? We ask, have you carefully read our Confession of Faith? We ask, have you carefully read our Confession of Faith? Have you carefully read our Constitution?

Requirement #2: Wholehearted Support of Ministry (Corporate Life)

6:33 Is there anything in either of those documents with which you find yourself in conscientious disagreement? And if a person says, no, according to my present life, the things expressed in the Confession are my Confession of Faith, the standards established for how we will live our life together in this Church are standards that I can embrace, that is what we mean by accepting or embracing our subordinate standards. Now we come tonight to the final two requirements for membership in this particular Church, and the second of those final three is this, the requirement of committing to our corporate life and ministry. When one is knocking at the door of admission to this particular assembly, we require that they intend to give wholehearted support to its ministry. Now why do we do this? Well, there are many reasons, not the least of which is this.

7:45 The Church is set forth in the New Testament under many likenesses or analogies. It is called in passages such as 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, a body. It is called in Ephesians 4, a body. It is called in Ephesians 2 and in 1 Timothy chapter 3, a household.

8:06 It is designated in 1 Peter chapter 2 and again in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 as a living temple. Its individual members are said to be members of an army, 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 2, and Ephesians chapter 6 verses 10 and following. All of these are likenesses, analogies. analogies with respect to what the church is. Therefore, anyone contemplating entrance into it must desire to become a vital part of the church in all of the facets of its life and ministry. If the church is a body, they must show a serious, wholehearted intention of becoming vitally attached to the body and integrated into the total life of the body. Every member of my body and of yours is vitally concerned in the total organism of the body. Furthermore, if the church is a household, then those intending to enter must demonstrate that they have a

9:20 wholehearted desire to really become active part of the church. They must have a heart of family life, to establish family relationships, to enter into family burdens, to struggle with family problems and concerns, and to have a real inward desire that they will be a happy, wholesome member of the family of God. And if the church is likened to an army, those entering into it must demonstrate they are ready for the warfare. That they are prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with their fellow soldiers as they wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and those spiritual hosts of darkness that seek to oppose the work of God. We saw in a previous study some months ago when dealing with the purpose of the church and the inward arrows, I stated at that time there are no fewer than two dozen one another passages in the epistles.

10:27 That is passages in which the members are addressed with respect to their ministry one to another, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ, Galatians 6. James chapter 4. 5. Confess your sins one to another. Pray one for another.

10:49 Hebrews chapter 3. Exhort one another while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sins. And on and on we could go with respect to the one another passages. Now surely anyone entering the church should not only understand that this is part of church life, but demonstrate that this is part of the church life.

11:12 But demonstrate that this is part of the church life. But demonstrate a wholehearted commitment to enter into the corporate life and ministry of such a church. Furthermore, when we look at the epistles of the New Testament, we need to remind ourselves that these were not written to individuals. They were not printed by the thousands or tens of thousands and delivered in people's mailboxes.

11:37 They came as living letters from living apostles and those who had... They had apostolic approval and they were read to gathered assemblies of God's people.

11:49 And the assumption in all of that is that all of the people were gathered to hear the whole directive to the family. So that when we pick up the letters and we find general directives, the great statements of God's salvation that pertains to all of God's people, but then we find in many of the epistles, specific groups are addressed. We find masters and servants and fathers and wives and husbands and then a whole litany of responsibilities laid upon the people of God in their assumed interaction one with another. Just take a chapter like the last half of Romans chapter 12, passing over the first section that deals with the matter of diversity of gifts and the responsibility of each. And then in Romans chapter 12, we find that in Romans chapter 12, Paul speaks of being of the same mind, one toward another, rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep. You see, it's easy for us not to see the woods for the trees. The whole assumption of all those epistles of the New Testament is that those who came into the membership of the church were into the total life and ministry of those congregations.

Individual Maturity in the Context of the Body

13:11 In Ephesians chapter 4, and here I want now just not to quote, but I want you to see this with your own eyes, the apostle makes it plain that the maturation of any individual believer is realized in the context of the maturation of the whole body. And so in Ephesians 4, 15 and 16, breaking into the middle of a very lengthy sentence, but speaking the truth in it, it says, "...and that every body in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, even Christ, from whom all the body, fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in due measure of each several part, makes the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love." Now I was sitting at my desk and pondering this saying, Lord, how can I illustrate this from the imagery of the body? It hit me, it's very simple. When I was a little boy, I had the hands of a little boy.

14:25 I did not have mature masculine hands. I had a little boy's hands joined to a little boy's arm, joined to a little boy's torso, joined to a little boy's legs and a little boy's feet. Now, my hands had come to full masculine maturity, not in isolation, but as a part of the maturation of my whole physiology. As my whole body came from being a little boy to prepubescent and through puberty and into young manhood and into its full masculine adult vigor, probably somewhere around thirty, the rest has been downhill, all of the individual, individual members came to that full masculine maturity in vital relationship to all the other members. I came to full masculine maturity as an organic living human being who happens to be a male. Now that's the picture Paul gives. Every member of the body vitally, organically joined to the whole and everyone making its own contribution, the individual members come to maturity in relationship to the body.

15:46 God has no lone ranger Christians. I could not as a little boy have my hands severed, stick it in a bell jar and cap it and say, come to masculine maturity all on your own. It would be nothing but a withered pile of stinking flesh if cut off from the rest of the little boy's body. And that hand could come to full masculine maturity only in its organic relationship to the whole organism.

The Example of the Early Church's Corporate Life (Acts 2)

16:20 Do you see it? That's what Paul is talking about. And therefore, to come into the church is to say, I'm ready to be integrated into the total life and ministry of the church, to make my God-given contribution, to draw from the other members of the body the nutrients and the nourishment and the nerve impulses that in the context of the body I as an individual member will come to increasing maturity in the Lord Jesus Christ. And perhaps there is no text that describes a group of people who did this from the outset in concrete terms more clearly than the familiar words of Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2, a passage we've come to again and again in these studies on the purpose of the church and on requirements for admission into the church. Here is God's beautiful description of what happened on the day of Pentecost and in the months and years that followed. Verse 41 of Acts 2, Then they that received his word were baptized, and they were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.

17:43 Luke writing approximately thirty years after Pentecost. This was no fly-by-night account of some great stirring and it hit the newspapers three weeks later. No, it's about thirty years after the fact. Luke gathering all his materials with his meticulous historiography manifested and clearly alluded to in the opening words of the Gospel of Luke.

18:11 This is what Luke can say. Of the three thousand added to the existing one hundred and twenty, they continued steadfastly. In what? In the total life and ministry of that church.

18:26 They continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching. They attached themselves to those who were the instruments of the risen Christ to bring the word of Christ to the church of Christ. They continued steadfastly in the word of Christ, the apostolic teaching. But then they continued steadfastly not only in the apostles' teaching but also in fellowship, in koinonia, in shared life.

18:59 They didn't listen to the apostles and say, ah, I got my spiritual food for the week. I split. And now I go home and it's just Jesus, the apostolic truth, and me. No, no.

19:12 They understood from the apostolic instruction more of what they had in Christ, but they understood that what they had in Christ was shared with their brethren. And it was in that living koinonia, shared life, that those great realities would come to tangible and to edifying expression. They continued steadfastly not only in the word of Christ, but in vital interaction with the people of Christ, and then thirdly, in the breaking of bread. And most commentators agree that though this terminology can speak of common bread being broken and eaten in a common meal, that it is most likely that this is a reference not to their common meals, for they couldn't live and do anything if they were not breaking bread, i.e., eating regular meals, but it is a reference to that wonderful privilege, opportunity to obey the Lord Jesus and to feed especially upon Christ himself. So they continued steadfastly in the context of the life of the church, receiving and adhering to the word of Christ, interacting with the people of Christ, and then joyfully, thankfully remembering and feeding upon Christ himself in the supper of remembrance.

20:33 And they continued steadfastly in the prayers, in that tangible expression of their corporate dependence upon the power of Christ. They continued in prayer. They didn't look over their shoulder and say, look what God did, this mighty work of the past, surely he'll carry it on whether we pray or not. That was not their attitude.

20:55 They continued steadfastly in the prayers. Of the three thousand who were incorporated, Luke can write years later the pattern of their life until they were scattered and those that yet remained after they were scattered is continuance in the total life and ministry of the church. And surely my brothers and sisters, we should not admit into membership someone who does not express his or her intention to come into the total life and ministry of the assembly. There are enough struggles to keep those commitments.

21:35 Where in the world will we be if we don't even expect them? And I know, I know there are people who pillory us. I have, without my name being mentioned, a rose called by any other name is a rose still. And I've read articles lambasting these churches that demand of those who come into the membership attendance at all the stated meetings.

22:03 Involvement, not in the life of the church. We have been lampooned and marked out as some kind of marginal fanatics because we state this is our expectation. But surely, with these passages before us, and I've just broad stroked whole sections of the New Testament, how can we settle for anything less than someone knocking at that front door saying, yes, I not only embrace the subordinate standards as an expression of what I believe and how I'm prepared to walk in this church in fellowship, but I intend to give wholehearted support to its life and to its ministry. I say these passages in my judgment are overwhelming in pointing to the principle that this is not some man made off the wall flying from Mars requirement, but it is a very practical expression of the whole tendency of the teaching of the New Testament with regard to the commitments essential to meaningful God-honoring church membership. So there's our friend at the front door and he keeps on knocking. He's like that friend at midnight.

Transition to Final Requirement: Submission to Government and Discipline

23:25 He's not turned away easily. He says, I want in. And we've said, what are your credentials? He says, well, I'm of mature age to know what I'm doing.

23:35 Good. Furthermore, I profess to know God in Jesus Christ. I've repented and believed and I am a penitent believing man. That's who I am.

23:45 My repentance and faith are not precious memories of something done in the past. They are the texture of what I am in the present. I live a life of repentance and faith and my life has been transformed by the power of God, whether dramatically and radically from a profligate, dissolute life or gradually like the rising of the sun that gently dispels the night. I'm living as a penitent believing sinner and furthermore, I've borne witness to Christ's work in me and my commitment to Him in baptism.

24:21 And furthermore, by the grace of God knocking at the door, I can say that I do embrace the subordinate standards of this church. Is there anything else? We say yes. Are you prepared to commit yourself from the heart to the total life and ministry of this church?

24:42 As best I know so, help me God, I am. Anything more? We say yes. One more requirement.

24:48 One more requirement and here it is, the third of these last three. The requirement of submitting to the government and discipline of this assembly. The requirement of submitting to the government and discipline of this assembly. And I'll address both of those things as subheads of Roman number three.

Biblical Warrant for Submission to Church Government

25:10 A, the biblical warrant for requiring submission to the government of the church and large letter B, the biblical warrant for requiring submission to its discipline. First of all, the biblical warrant for submitting to the government of the church. Now there are many people who have an utterly unbiblical concept of the church. They assume that if we are not part of a Presbyterian structure and we are independent, that is, we believe every church stands under Christ and answerable to Christ, that therefore we are a kind of ecclesiastical democracy.

25:45 One man, one vote. Nobody represents us in Presbytery, in Synod, in General Assembly. One man, one vote. We are a free church.

25:55 We are a free church. We are a free church. We are a free church. We are a democratic society.

26:03 Well, listen to John Brown who answers that kind of biblical ignorance. He writes, a Christian church is a very free society. In other words, no one can get you in a hammer lock and say, pound on that door until you get in. Nor can anyone bring you in on the basis of their faith and their desire that you become a Christian.

26:28 You are not in by virtue of bloodlines. You can't legitimately be brought in in virtue of someone else's decision for you. You must personally knock and seek admission. John Brown rightly says a Christian church is a very free society.

26:44 It is an uncoerced society. No one baptizes you at the point of a gun. That is being done not at the point of a gun but at the threat of death in certain Muslim lands right now. Circumcision and brutalizing in ways that I will not mention in a public forum.

27:02 People are being forced to be identified as Muslims. And this has been done, of course, with Roman Catholic evangelism in certain places in past days. But that is another issue. John Brown rightly says the Christian church is a very free society.

27:19 But listen to the sagacious man of God. They mistake the matter who consider it as a democracy. It is a monarchy administered by superior magistrates chosen by their fellow subjects who are to execute the King's laws being guided solely by His word and neither by their own judgment or whims nor by the opinions and will of those whom they govern. Christ is the Lord and He administers His government by officers appointed according to His ordinance and regulated by His laws.

27:59 It is of utmost importance both to the office-bearers and private members of a Christian church that they have distinct scriptural views on this subject that those who govern may not exact what they have no right to and that the governed may not refuse what by the law of Christ they are bound to give. This church is not a democracy. One man, one woman, one vote. It is not a democracy in which you and I exercise sovereignty by means of our vote. Our vote in our representative republic setting here in America is an expression of our independent sovereignty. In the church he is the king in Zion. He is the head of his church as Christ is the head of the church.

29:11 So let the wives be to their husbands in everything. And how does he govern? He governs to use John Brown's very felicitous terms. I think they are helpful terms.

29:29 He has his gift and his appointment in the church by their fellow subjects. No one can impose a pastor or an elder upon this church from the outside. From within you recognize among your fellow members those whom Christ the head of the church has chosen to rule over you. These are the terms describing these inferior magistrates who are recognized by their fellow subjects to rule and govern among them not according to their whims or according to the whims of the people, and that's the structure of government in Christ's church. And Christ who has made his will clear that this is how his church is to be governed has given us a portrait of those whom he will give to us as his gifts to be recognized as inferior magistrates to govern among us. He has a good

30:59 work, the elder, the bishop must be. And then Christ gives the features of those whom he has fashioned to be inferior magistrates among us. We look at Titus 1, 5 through 9, where again by the inspiration of the Spirit the Apostle gives a portrait of a king in the church who is subdued to the kingdom of God. The Lord was in the house of the king and was in the house of the king and the Lord in his house." So that is the crunch with a lot of people in our day. Say, if it only said obey the Word and obey the Lord, I'm all for that. But don't you put any fellow human being in the... Obey them

32:09 that have the rule over you and submit to them. For they watch for your souls. They watch for your souls as they that shall give an account that they may do this with grief, with joy, and not with grief. For this would be unprofitable for you.

32:27 Know them that are over you in the Lord and admonish you. If a man rule not well his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? It is assumed in the New Testament doctrine of its government that the church of Christ is not a democratic society. It is a monarchy in which Christ the King administers his rule by inferior magistrates, recognized according to the standard of Scripture, who administer the rule of Christ according to the Word and directive of Scripture.

33:08 Therefore, when someone's knocking on the door, one of the questions we ask, many of you have heard it in a membership interview, as you contemplate John, Mary coming into the church, have you seen in this group of men, how many ever of the elders may be presented in the interview, have you seen in us, not perfection, not a halo floating around our head, but have you seen in us the marks of true shepherds? Can you come into this church and submit to our government in the Lord from the heart? We ask that question because that is a very valid requirement for membership. That those coming into a house where the people do not sit around saying, well, we can't wait until one of us makes a motion. We make a new law by which we're going to operate in our house. You stand at the door and knock and say, hey, you fellows on the inside, how do you order your life? What's your structure of government? Are you a democracy?

34:12 One man, one woman, one vote? Get together in a congregational meeting and decide this, that, and the other? They say no. We happen in this house to recognize an absolute sovereign. You do?

34:25 What's his name? His name is Jesus. He is the exalted messianic king. And he has brought us in faith and submission to his footstool.

34:35 And here in his house, his word is law. Well, tell me, in the outworking of that and in your interaction with one another, how do you decide what his word is saying? Well, we do it by searching the scriptures, but we do it by following the leadership of those whom Christ has put among us to minister his laws. They're called elders, pastors, overseers, shepherds of his flock. So you mean if I come in there, it isn't a case of me now, one man, one vote? No, that's right. You've got it straight and clear. In this particular household, Christ the king rules by these inferior magistrates whom we have recognized as his gift by looking into the scriptures to see that they have the gifts and graces.

35:26 And if they step aside, in their lives, they are subject to the same rules of discipline that Christ has imposed upon his house so that if they sin wantonly and do not repent upon being reproved, they can be put out the back door by Christ through the stewardship of the people of God whom we saw have a stewardship from Christ about the front door and concerning the back door.

Biblical Warrant for Submission to Church Discipline

35:58 So that's the biblical warrant for submitting to the government of the church. What about the biblical warrant for submitting to its discipline? Is it right to require that when people are knocking at the door, we say, are you prepared from the heart, not only to submit to the government of this church, but to its discipline? What does the word discipline mean when used this way in our constitution? Well, having been a part of the process from the very beginning, I think I know the basic sense in which it is used. The word discipline, biblically, and the way we use it, can be a very broad word, or a word broad in its meaning. Any kind of training can be discipline. In its more narrow sense, we think of it in terms of the part of training that involves correction, reproof, and what we may call disciplinary action.

36:54 So and so has been suspended from his job pending disciplinary action by the board of governors. Now it's in that sense that we use discipline here. And we ask people coming into the church, believing it is right to make this a requirement for membership, are you prepared to submit to the discipline of the church? Those within the house have a responsibility from the Lord of the house to make sure that everyone who remains in the house manifests the family likeness to the Lord of the house. And if there is a sin which they have committed, and a brother or sister addresses it, and they do not repent, and it is validated before two or three witnesses that they show an impenitent attitude, the Lord of the house says if they are determined to go on in a course that is a contradiction of the family likeness, put them out of the house.

37:56 Now that's a paraphrase of Matthew chapter 18, verses 15 through 18. Listen to the word of God. It is clear whatever questions we may have about particulars, the overall teaching is unmistakably clear. If your brother sinned, some textual weight is given to the next two words against you.

38:20 So whether the original text is if your brother sinned or if he sinned against you, go show him his fault between you and him alone. Here is a sin that cannot be covered with the blanket of love. It is disrupting inter-family communion and it is of such a nature that it can only hinder the brother from growing in grace if he doesn't deal with it. So out of desire to maintain family unity and family sanctity, you go to the brother and you show him his fault between yourself and him alone. If he hears you, now look at the emphasis, you've gained your brother. You're not only in the same house, but you have one heart toward one another. The sin that was a barrier has been removed by repentance. Forgiveness sought, forgiveness extended. You've gained your brother.

39:14 See, you go not to cover your brother, you go to gain him to yourself. And in gaining him to yourself, back into unbroken communion with his Lord. But if he does not hear you, he said, no, I don't think it was sin. That's just your funny-dutty views of things. I've got a right to this and that. What does the Lord say you to do? Take with you one or two more. That at the mouth of two witnesses or three every word may be established.

39:42 This is a sin that is not a matter. Well, you know, John passed me three weeks ago, two aisles away in the Target store, and I said hello to him and he didn't look at me with a warm look in his eye. Well, how are you going to establish that before witnesses? Case dismissed.

40:00 This is something that can be established. Please turn this cassette over to continue the message. I said hello to him and he didn't look at me with a warm look in his eye. Well, how are you going to establish that before witnesses? Case dismissed. This is something that can be established before rational people. It is a sin. It needs to be dealt with.

40:23 So you take two or three witnesses and every word is established. And if he refused to hear them, tell it what? His sin. Though it may have been a private sin, it may have been a personal sin against you, it is a sin, the nature of which can be clearly identified, established, carry the judgment of the two or three witnesses, and if he refused to hear the church, hear the church do what?

40:51 Call him to repentance, to deal with his sin, that the family likeness may not be marred, that family unity may not be fractured. If he will not hear you, he will not own his sin. What is the church to do? Look at the teaching of our Lord Jesus.

41:08 If he refused to hear the church, let him be unto you as the Gentile, the heathen, and the tax collector. The heathen and the tax collector was not welcomed into the synagogue. He was not welcomed to have standing as a fellow Jew. He was put out of the synagogue.

41:30 He would not be brought into the synagogue. He is regarded as unclean. Not beyond the scope of mercy, not beyond the scope of God's restorative grace, but determined to go on in a sin which mars the family likeness, fractures family unity, the church is to open the back door under the guidance and direction of its overseers. The church is to validate, this person doesn't belong in the family.

42:06 And he's put out of the family with the hopes that he will then sense the horror of what he's done, repent, and be received back in. But in the state of intelligence, he doesn't belong in the family. Coming into the church means you are consciously, deliberately putting yourself within the orbit of this framework of discipline. And it's a sober issue for Jesus goes on to say in verse 18, what things soever you shall bind on earth shall be bound or have been bound in heaven.

42:46 And what things soever you shall loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. The actions of the family according to the word of Christ are ratified in heaven. You see now why we don't encourage children to come into church membership? Serious stuff folks. Because you come in conscious that with all of its privileges, with all of its joys and delights, there is the liability of this kind of corrective discipline.

Further Examples of Church Discipline (2 Thessalonians 3, 1 Corinthians 5)

43:28 See what the apostle says in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3.

43:36 2 Thessalonians in chapter 3. There was some disorderliness among some of the people there at Corinth, I mean at Thessalonica. Unlike the Corinthians who were engaged in some sordid forms of sin, we would say this was not that kind of sordid thing. They were just lazy.

43:55 And under the guise of being so spiritual that they were sitting on the log looking up to heaven waiting for Jesus to come and had no time and energy to work. Paul says in verse 6 of chapter 3, 2 Thessalonians, we command you brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus. You see what Paul is saying? What I'm giving you is the rule and will of the king and lord of his house.

44:20 This comes to you from the Lord Jesus that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walks disorderly and not after the tradition which they received of us. And then he identifies what the specific issue is as I've given it to you in broad strokes. Now he says, verse 11 for we hear that some walk among you disorderly. They work not at all but are busybodies.

44:45 Now them that are such, now look at his language again. We command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ. You mean Jesus does this? Jesus is so hard as to impose on people social ostracization?

45:04 That's not my Jesus. Well my friend, if that's so, you better get to Jesus who is the Jesus of the Bible. We command you in the name of the Lord Jesus to do what? He says we exhort that with quietness they work, eat their bread, be not weary brethren in well doing. If any man obeys not our word by this epistle, note that man, that you have no company with him to the end that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy but admonish him as a brother. Point out his fault. Call him to repentance. Withdraw from him that he may be filled with shame. What a horrible thing. Don't you know that shame is the greatest bruising to our self-esteem?

45:57 And surely the church is the place where your self-esteem will be stroked and fostered and blossomed. Well in many ways it does in the right sense of my work in Christ. For brethren to receive me for who and what I am as God's creature renewed in Christ but here he says that the social effect of the family should be one that this man hangs his head in shame until his shame leads to repentance and his repentance to an altered pattern of life. Then you can treat him like a brother who again is bearing the family likeness. You claim to be the family of the God who works. My father works until now. The God who says six days shall thou labor. Surely you don't reflect your father sitting on the log waiting for Jesus to come.

46:48 You see the family likeness must be seen in God's family. Christ the elder brother must be reflected and if not the family has a responsibility to deal with the errant brother or sister. Sometimes the dealings have to even be more drastic and more correntory immediate decisive. Paul receives word that there at Corinth there's a man who's entered into an incestuous relationship that is even forbidden among the heathen in their canons of legitimate marriages and he says it's reported it's common knowledge that there is sexual uncleanness among you and such uncleanness as is not even among the Gentiles. Then he says this is what you're to do. He didn't say now follow every step of Matthew 18. No, no. He bypasses that

47:40 and he says in verse 3 I verily being absent in body but present in spirit have already as though I were present judged him that has so wrought this thing. Remember this is not a private individual it's an apostle a representative of Christ in Christ's authority judgment has already been made and he says I want you to reflect that the next time you're gathered together in the name of our Lord Jesus you being gathered together. You see here's the household that has the stewardship of the back door. He didn't say your elders gathered together. You the church under its leadership but the church gathered together. What are they to do? You being gathered together and my spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. And while reams of commentary have been written on what does it mean to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh which much is clear and indisputable whatever it was it involved being put out of the church. That's

48:55 why he goes on to say in verses 12 and 13 what have I to do with judging them that are without do not you judge do not you judge them that are within but them that are without God judges put away the wicked man from among yourselves whatever it means deliver unto Satan. It's tangible expression was you take him out of the family that conduct is inconsistent with the family that says we're under the rule of Christ living by the word of Christ to the glory of Christ to the validation of the power of the gospel of Christ. Paul said it's unthinkable that that man would sit among you mingling his voice with your praise taking his grubby hands and breaking off a piece of bread at the supper. It's unthinkable the next time you gather put him out. Wishing he'll go to hell? No. Hoping

49:51 that that drastic action will result in his repentance that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Who has that awesome responsibility? You being gathered together you come in not only liable to that discipline but with the sober responsibility to enter in to the discipline of your brothers and sisters. Now you see again why we don't welcome children into the church even though in many cases there are children sitting here whom parents and some of us who know them believe are true Christians. You want children to have to stand and say in unison with God's people. He exposed to the details of some of the sordid activities of professing Christians that have to be disclosed if the family of God is to act in faith in making a judgment upon their wicked conduct. That's why we say maturity. Sufficient

God's Direct Discipline (Acts 5, 1 Corinthians 11)

51:08 maturity to take all the privileges and responsibilities and liabilities of church membership. We do not see two levels of church membership any more than we see two levels of discipleship in our Bibles. And some times you come into the church you come into the sphere where God himself sometimes exercises discipline directly. He doesn't wait for the family to act he acts. Turn to Acts chapter 5. And I'm spending a little more time on this than the other matters because well a number of reasons. I won't share them all with you but one of them is it's been some time since we looked at these passages and this is a matter very foreign to the general run of Evangelical churches in our day. First Corinthians. I'm

52:03 sorry. Did I say Corinthians? I meant the book of Acts. Acts chapter 5. Did I say Acts?

52:07 Thank you. My head is going to Corinthians. Another passage in 1 Corinthians 11. But Acts chapter 5. You remember the story?

52:15 God the Holy Spirit had poured out a spirit of unusual generosity as we've been praying. He would do in conjunction with the offering today. And where's Mr. Denzel?

52:28 Where are you Rich? He may be down. Oh there you are. Am I at liberty to just give the ballpark figures from this morning?

52:35 Or am I not? Am I? I'm a man under the, not authority but in consultation with the deacon. Alright. A rough ballpark figure that this morning's offering already topped $60,000. And more was coming in tonight. The spirit of generosity that God gives to his people. Well this is what was happening in the church at Jerusalem and different ones were coming forward saying Peter!

53:00 There's got to be a hunk of land over here. I don't need it. My kids don't need it. I've just been letting it sit there and appreciate like the hunk of land across the street. Hoping someday to make some good use of it. But I understand this tremendous need among some of these people who've come from other lands and have been converted here at Jerusalem and others who because of persecution that's begun to be let loose. Their jobs are suffering and their financial situation is unstable. I'm going to dispose of that hunk of land and you distribute.

53:30 I've had the men who distribute the goods to the widows. That's in Acts 6. You apostles who are now distributing it you give it out as you see need. So word apparently got out that John was doing this and Harry was doing this and Pete was doing that and these two guys this guy and this gal Ananias and Sapphira said you know it would surely be nice to have people look at us as Mr. and Mrs.

53:52 Generosity. It'd be great. But they sit down and said look we know that our hunk of land is worth so much. We believe we can get it.

54:01 For so much. But then we're only going to give half of it. But we'll tell Peter and the others we've given it all so we'll be going around and everybody will stroke us. Mr. and Mrs. Generosity.

54:13 The Holy Spirit revealed to Peter what they did. Here in Acts chapter 5 listen to what happened. Peter speaks in verse 3. Peter said Ananias why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land while it remained? Did it not remain your own? After it was sold was it not in your power? In other words he said it was your land. Even when it was sold it was your money. You could have given ten cents on it. Just so long as you didn't represent that that was all you got for the land and lie. You didn't lie to men. You lied to the Holy Spirit who dwells in the house of God.

54:55 That's the point. You didn't lie to men but to the Holy Spirit but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down and gave up his spirit. Great fear came upon all that heard it. And the young men arose and wrapped him round and carried him out and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after when his wife not knowing what had done, what was done came in and Peter answered her tell me whether you sold the land for so much? And she said oh yes Peter ah yes very humbly Peter we tell you it was so much. Peter responds and says how is it? How is it that you have agreed together to try the spirit of the Lord? Behold the feet of them that have buried your husband are at the door and they shall carry you out. And she fell down immediately at his feet and gave up her spirit. And the young men came in and found her dead and they carried her out and buried her by her husband.

55:53 And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all that heard these things. God says I'll be the disciplinarian of these two liars I'll strike them dead.

56:06 I don't think this passage often gets included if there are biblical passages in the latest books on how to establish a user friendly church. Pray that God will kill the hypocrites.

56:22 Great fear. People said hey I think I'm going to go knock on the door of that church. People said hey whoa whoa whoa wait a minute you know what happens there? If you're not real God kills people in that church.

56:35 That's what it says. God kills people. Fear came and what happens? It says that because of that fear verse 13 but of the rest dared no man join himself to them. How be it the people magnified them and believers with a more added to the Lord multitudes of men and women. There was fear. You come into that church you're not entering a religious club where all you have are the dynamics of what men can bring to a club. The living God is in their midst and you're not real with that God he might kill you.

57:13 So until you've been brought to repentance and faith where being real with God is now what you are. You wanted nothing to do with that bunch.

57:25 That's the mark of real repentance and faith when you're brought to the place where being real before God is what matters most in your life.

57:35 And when you weren't there you didn't want this bunch. And sometimes God's direct discipline was not always so drastic so that Paul writing to the Corinthians and rebuking and reproving them for their disorders in conjunction with the Lord's supper he says in verse 29 of 1 Corinthians 11 for he that eats and drinks eats and drinks judgment to himself if he discern not the body for this cause many among you are weak and sickly and not a few sleep. Paul says some of you at Corinth are sickly and weak and some among you have died. Because the Lord has disciplined you for your irregularities within his house. That's why Paul could say in the third chapter do you not know that you Corinthians are a temple of the living God and the spirit of God dwells among you. If any man destroy the temple of God him shall God destroy.

58:43 A church with all of its faults and all of its shortcomings and its sins is nonetheless a church a temple of the living God and God have mercy on us the day people can come up and knock at our door laid back careless and flippant and think they're just entering another religious club with a few different wrinkles.

59:16 We are a temple of the living God. To come into that temple is to come into some dimension of more intimate interaction with the powers of the age to come and with the God who is a consuming fire. And therefore we think it right to expect that people coming into the church understand that they are not only embracing our subordinate standards committing themselves to the life and ministry of the church but submitting themselves to the government and to the discipline of this assembly.

Summary and Application to Unbelievers and Members

60:01 Now I want to summarize and bring several final words of application. With tonight's message we've completed our examination of two major sections of our constitution. The purpose of the church 19 messages one introductory message requirements for membership in the church some 8 or 9 I'm not sure Harry will sort me out tomorrow or tonight. And I want to conclude this section of our study with several words first of all to you who are not Christians.

60:32 As I said this morning if you're not in Christ your great concern should not be what must I do to become a member of Trinity Church. But it ought to be the concern of the Philippian jailer who said sirs what must I do to be saved. If becoming a church member is such a serious thing for those whose sins are forgiven who are right with God. What is your state sitting here with the wrath of God hanging over your head.

61:04 And I pray God you won't go out from another Lord's Day in all the vulnerability of an unclean and pardoned sinner's state but that you would run to the Christ who comes to you with what we've called in days past those wonderful indicative of gospel mercy. God has sent his son. His son is born. The sin of men.

61:31 His son has died and discharged all of the obligations that any sinner has to the law of God in terms of judgment and deserved wrath. That Christ has been raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father and promises that all who come unto him he will turn away none of them. Those indicatives are now overlaid with the graciousness of the Lord. The grace of the Lord.

61:59 The gracious imperatives. Repent and believe the gospel. Turn from that which will destroy you and cast yourself upon the gracious and able, a willing and almighty Savior. To you the Lord's people who are members in this place I want to state this as soberly as I know how and I pleaded with God this afternoon when I was working on the application.

62:24 Lord how do I say it? And I wish I had more time to say it in a better way but this is the best I can do. No subordinate standards will in themselves ensure doctrinal integrity and ecclesiastical integrity in this place. We believe we have a noble, catholic, historic, reformed, evangelical confession of faith.

62:51 We believe we have an imperfect but helpful workable document of how we can live our life decently and in order, before the face of God in the light of the word in our constitution. But those subordinate standards give no insurance that there will be a maintenance of doctrinal integrity or ecclesiastical integrity. Only the living presence of Christ, only a passionate love for Christ will keep us in the way of doctrinal and ecclesiastical integrity. You remember what Jesus said to the disciples?

63:29 He said, I am the Lord of the church at Ephesus. Your subordinate standards are impeccable and you are defending them. I commend you. You cannot tolerate evil men.

63:40 You cannot stand those who would teach error. They knew the difference between truth and error and they were maintaining it. No indication that they were lax in their discipline. You cannot tolerate evil men.

63:55 The implication is they were exercising discipline. But the Lord said, there's a condition which if not corrected means I'll remove your lampstand out of its place. Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee. You have left your first love.

64:14 It is love and attachment to the person of Christ that becomes both the motivation and the conduit of enablement to maintain doctrinal and ecclesiastical integrity. Guard your walk. Watch your steps. Watch as well as pray that you enter not into temptation.

64:39 For all of God's truth tends to godliness. Paul calls it in Titus 1, the truth which is kata according to godliness. The love of truth presses us to godliness. You move away from godliness, you move away from the truth.

64:56 And when you move away from the truth as the love of your heart in order to be godly, it's no big deal to give up the truth. It's a concept in your brain. I don't know how long the Lord will delay His coming. I don't know if some of you children sit here now will be the gray-haired and the bald-headed men and the wrinkled gray-haired women of another generation.

Application to Non-Member Believers and Children

65:22 But mark my word, if truth continues to be preached and lived in this place, it will be because Christ continues to be dearly and passionately loved in the hearts of the rising generation. And then to you who are the Lord's people but not members in this place, has God shown mercy to you? Has He brought you among us in His providence? Then stop being a lone ranger Christian.

65:55 You say, well, is this get-ten-members month? No, we've never been in the numbers game. Is the budget kind of falling off? We need some more tithers?

66:06 No, this is for your good and for God's glory. It's nothing to do with any self-interest on our part. We believe what we've taught tonight. God is not going to make you an exception to His divinely ordered way of bringing you to maturity, and that is in vital union with His body.

66:27 When I first began to read some of the standard Reformed confessions, and I read in the Westminster Confession of Faith the statement concerning the church as that institution and organism out of which ordinarily there is no salvation. You know what I thought in my ignorance? I said, that's the remnants of Romanism that these guys in the 1600s hadn't yet flushed out of their system. They were right.

66:53 Ordinarily, outside of the church, there is no salvation. What did they mean? They meant God's saving purpose is carried on in His church. It is through the church proclaiming Christ that sinners are saved and brought into the church.

67:07 And it's in the life of the church where Christ deposits the life of His Spirit in every member of the body, and gives men the particular gifts of ministry and service. It is in the church that He's ordained to have you come to maturity, outside of which there is ordinarily no ongoing progress in salvation. Salvation in its widest, deepest, highest scope. So I urge you to prayerfully consider whether it's time to stop.

67:38 And when I was working on my application, the word shilly-shally came to my mind. I hadn't heard it in decades. And I said, where did that come from? I took out my dictionary and I said, I don't even know if it's a word.

67:48 Well, it is. It's rather archaic. And it comes from someone saying, shall I, or shall I, shall I, shall I, shall I? And it became shilly-shally.

67:56 You know, well, yeah, but there's some of you sitting here. You hear a sermon like this and say, well, I ought to get off my duff and start doing something about this matter. And then you go back and sit on your duff again. You see why you're not making any substantive progress?

68:11 You're telling God you can grow in your own way. And God is not going to validate your arrogance. Now stop being arrogant. Humble yourself and say, I need what all the other ordinary Christians need.

68:25 I need to be within the family, committed to the family, and to its Lord and to its Sovereign. And the words of the Old Testament come with us and we will do you good. Now I want to talk to you kids in my closing word. I bounced this off my wife as she lay on the bed before I came.

68:46 I said, honey, pray that God will help me to really speak heart to heart to the kids. Now you kids, especially I'm talking to those of you that mom and dad have a good marriage. And if mom and dad don't have a good marriage, maybe you have a grandma and a grandpa who do. Or if not a grandma and a grandpa, you see people in the church that have good marriages.

69:10 You see that there's still a glow in the husband's eye. And there's still a glow in the wife's eye. And as you're able to be in the homes and watch their interaction, as you begin to grow up and come out of the, you know, I talked about the three stages boys and girls go through. You say to girls, boys, and they say, yuck.

69:29 Then they come to a stage where you say to the boys, girls, and they no longer say yuck, but they go, hmm. And then they go from the yuck and the hmm to the hmm stage. And somewhere between the, the, and the hmm stage, my poor brother, how are you going to reproduce that?

69:49 Have mercy on me. Oh my, we need to pin a badge on that brother. All right, okay. That, but somewhere kids between that and the hmm stage, you begin to think when I grow up, I hope I can get a husband like mommy's got.

70:13 I hope God would give me a wife like daddy's got. I hope when I grow up, God will give me a marriage like Mr. and Mrs. have.

70:23 And you begin to have percolate in your soul. What I would call holy ambitions for a Godly marriage. Not only is there nothing wrong with that kids, that's a noble thing to have to begin to lay up in your mind, a standard of what it is to have a Godly Christian marriage. And so if someone talks to you, when you thoroughly come out of the yuck and the hmm stage and are thoroughly into the hmm stage, and they say, what do you hope your future holds in the will of God?

70:57 I hope you can say with no embarrassment, I trust God will give me a Godly wife and a Godly husband, whatever the case may be. And that I would have a marriage like so-and-so. Be wonderful to hear some of you kids say that. But I want to challenge you to have another whole track of the building up of Godly ambition.

71:21 That as you see this family of God with all of its imperfections, nonetheless a family of God's people who love Christ. Who love one another, who love their overseers. They don't look upon us as a threat to them. They look upon us as Christ's gift to help them on their way to heaven.

71:42 And we as members of the body, we tell you, we need you to help us get to heaven. And you're building up a concept of what a church is, what pastors are, what deacons are, what church fellowship is, what worship is. And I want to challenge you kids. Would you pray that God will give you godly ambitions in this direction so that when you've passed out of the stage where you just couldn't take enough of it in to express it responsibly, and someone says, what do you hope to be when you grow up?

72:15 You might not only add, do I hope to have a godly husband, a godly wife, a godly marriage. I want to be a godly church member in Trinity Baptist Church.

72:29 Is it too much to pray that that will be an ambition that God will form in your hearts? And if in the providence of God, God takes you from this area, the ambition will nonetheless be the same. I want to be a godly church member in a church that is a true church, that honors Christ, that unashamedly attaches itself to the great historic stream of Christian orthodoxy, that unashamedly recognizes the lordship of Christ in its life and in its worship. If God plants those godly ambitions, I have many reasons to believe he will not plant them to frustrate you.

73:15 And it will shape your views of what you want to go after in life, kids. It will shape your priorities. It will shape your sense. It will shape your values.

73:27 What will it mean to have a little more stuff if the price you pay is a shriveled soul? Or you can't go to church expecting God will be worshiped with simple, holy, biblical enthusiasm that you've got to put in earplugs to protect your eardrums from the banging of the drums and the cacophony of amateurs wailing in their microphones as worship leaders. God help you. Dear children, when some of us are in our graves, if the Lord tarries, and you come to visit our graves and place a flower, I hope you remember what I've said to you tonight. When you hear me speaking from my tombstone, do you have a holy ambition to be a godly church member? First of all, yes, a true Christian. That's assumed.

74:30 And I'm speaking to some of you children that we have every reason to believe. As you believe, you've entrusted yourself to God. You've entrusted yourself to Christ. You've begun to experience a life of repentance and faith.

74:43 Some of you who, if we heard the news tomorrow that you died in your sleep, we would have great comfort and good reason to believe that absent from the body was present with the Lord. That's not true of all of you. Some of you kids and young people, we'd have great apprehensions that you split hell wide open. But for those of you whose hearts are toward Christ, and toward His word, and toward His truth, and away from sin, and away from the world, I pray that God will birth within your heart and nurture in your spirit a longing that you, by God's grace, will be part of such a church in your generation.

75:27 Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for answering our prayers and drawing near to us in the opening up of your word. We are humbled, and yet filled with gratitude when you enable us to taste at least something of the powers of the age to come. We pray that the things contemplated tonight will be burnt into our hearts by the ministry of the Spirit, and that holy fruit will be born even unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in glory and in power. Thank you, Lord, for helping us. Now enable us that as we go forth from this place we may be that light and salt that you have said we are. And may you so bless our impact upon those who know you not, upon our children, upon our families, upon our wives and husbands, that we will all be more like Christ as a result of our interaction with the other members of the body throughout the coming week.

76:44 Hear us. Accept our praise. In Jesus' name. Amen.