Biblical Principles of Church (Part 4) - Pastor Steve Estes

Full Transcript:

So now we come to some passages that will deal with the next several great principles.  And the next major principle from the New Testament about church is this:  In the New Testament, baptism and the Lord’s Supper were closely tied to membership in the local church.

Let’s consider those one by one, baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  So we’ll take as our next principle to break it down, in the New Testament, baptism was closely tied to church membership.

One of the many places we find this in Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost, the first Christian sermon. Jesus had gone back to heaven, the disciples had waited, the Holy Spirit came that day.  And so in verse 1 to 36 of Acts 2, Peter preaches the gospel.  And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized, everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins.”

And now jumping down to Acts 2:41: “So those who received his word were baptized.”  Here we have the very beginning of the Christian church, the same kind of thing that we had in the ministry of John the Baptist in the four gospels.  That is, no-one in the New Testament ever baptizes himself.  

Baptisms in the Bible are done by a church representative.  And if you trace this through the book of Acts by apostles and by Phillip the deacon, and possibly in Corinthians by other people beyond the apostles and the deacons, the reason was, that baptism was the church saying to a person who is professing faith in Christ, not, “We know that you are a Christian and therefore we will baptize you.” 

But rather, baptism was the church saying to a person, “As best we can tell from the things you’ve told us, your profession in Christ is believable, it’s credible.  We think you understand the gospel and your life seems to say that you are preparing to walk in his way, and so we accept you as a fellow Christian.  And thus, we baptize you.”

Now a second point under the idea that baptism was closely tied to membership is that Acts chapter 2 illustrates the relationship between baptism and acceptance into the visible church.  That is, acceptance into membership.  

If we go back to Acts chapter 2 verse 41 we read, that “those who received Peter’s words were baptized.”  That is, they believed, and were baptized, and now to our point in Acts 2:41, the second part of the verse we read, “Those who received his words were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

Now that’s an interesting little part of a sentence, that people who were converted were added. They were added to what?  They were added to salvation?  They were added to the universal church? That is, all God’s people around the world?  They were added to the local church? What were they added to?  

The answer comes in verse 47, the second half of the verse.  It says, “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”  In other words, if you take it literally, the Lord added together those who were being saved.  

In verse 41, we just read that new converts were added but verse 47 clarifies by explaining it: they were added to the number of believers.  We know that he’s talking about the number of believers because of what the previous chapter, Acts chapter 1 described.  Pretty much that whole chapter is a description of the Christian church before the day of Pentecost.  

Acts 1 says who was there. Acts 1 gives the number of people who were there.  Acts 1 tells where they met.  It lists the names of many of the people. It makes clear who the leaders are.  It describes a congregational meeting to choose the replacement for Judas, the apostle who hanged himself.

In other words we see in Acts chapter 1 the earliest Christian church both as an organism and as an organization.  The point is that in Acts 1 as they waited in an upper room for the Holy Sprit to come, patiently, this was the visible church in an upper room in Jerusalem.  It was a local church. It was at the time, the only local church on the planet.

Now Acts 2 goes on to show how baptized converts were added to the visible, I should say to this visible local organized church.  Remember that the people in Acts 2:41 believed Peter’s message.  That is, they accepted his message, they were baptized, and about 3,000 were added that day.  Well the rest of the paragraph and the next two describes what they’re being added, to that local church, to the only local church in the world, looked like, by describing what these people did once they were converted.

Verse 42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, and to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.”  They were quite busy with their church.  

Verse 44 says, “All the believers were together.”  

Verse 45, the second half of the verse: “They gave to anyone as he had need.” They took offerings.

Verse 46: “Every day they continued to meet together… They broke bread in their homes…they ate together with glad and sincere hearts.”

In other words, these people who became believers and were baptized did not become free floating Christians.  They participated in the church in the most intimate way possible.  They devoted themselves to the church life.  They did so under the leadership of the apostles.  That’s what membership is all about.  The point is, the way that the book of Acts describes the result of people being saved is that people get baptized, and then they get added, not just to Christ’s universal church, but to the visible church in their area, to a local people of God.  

Now this being added to the local church, as I say, was an act that was inseparable from their conversion and their baptism.  Baptism was the ritual of entrance into Christ’s visible church.  We might say into a local church. 

Also in the New Testament, the Lord’s Supper was closely tied to church membership.  If baptism is the ritual of entrance into a church, the Lord’s Supper is the ritual of continuance in the church.  

Now in the New Testament, the way we know that it was tied closely to church membership - one of the ways we know, is that in the New Testament, just like with baptism, no one gave himself the Lord’s Supper.  No one went to the store and says, “I’m going to buy some wine. I’m going to buy some bread. I’m going to break it. I’m going to drink it, remember Christ’s death.”  You never see that in the Bible.  Nor do you see families celebrating the Lord’s Supper as a family.  Or friends getting together and doing it in a small group or something.  The Lord’s Supper was taken within the local church.

Yes, in the Lord’s Supper, sure, a Christian individually is saying to God, to Christ in particular, “Christ, I’m still with you, I still believe in you, I’m still a follower.” But also in the Lord’s Supper, the church, by giving the elements of the Lord’s Supper to a believer are saying, “We still recognize you as a Christian.  We still accept you as a Christian.  We are glad to give you the elements. We don’t withhold them from you.”  This is possible only with Christians who have been examined by their local church to see if their faith is credible.  That is, it is only possible with what we today call, “church membership.”

The next principle is this.  The New Testament teaching about excommunication is meaningless without membership.  Excommunication is when a person is no longer welcome to be part of the church, they are outside the fellowship of the church.  We read about this in a case of church discipline, excommunication, from 1st Corinthians 5.  

There, there was a problem within the church. There was a man within the church who was sleeping with his stepmother.  Paul makes that clear, the man was inside the church, he wasn’t just a professing Christian in the neighborhood.  He was part of their church because he says, Paul says, “There is sexual immorality among you,” …within your group.  Paul said, You folks should be grieved by this,” but instead they were proud that they were so liberated.  And so further, Paul said in verse 2 of 1st Corinthians 5, “You should have put out of your fellowship the man who did this.”  Literally, “You should have removed him from your midst.”

In verse 7, he says, “Get rid of the yeast, the old yeast.”  He means that the man is like yeast in a dough of bread and his sins are going to spread to the whole congregation if it’s not checked.  In verse 13 he says expel the wicked man from among you.

Furthermore, the church was to do this formally.  That is, as a formal judicial act, and they were to do it at a congregational meeting because it says in the passage, “When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus,” do this.  That is, it’s an official decision.  They, verse 10, must not associate with the man anymore.  They, verse 10, must not even eat with the man anymore.  This of course is for his good so that he will feel ashamed, be lonely, and come back to Christ and his soul will be saved.

This process of removing someone from the church is called excommunication.  Paul said don’t put pagan people who live sinfully out of the church.  If you try to do that, you would have to leave this world because you brush shoulders with pagan people who are living like that all the time.  

Rather, he says in verse 11, if “anyone calls himself a brother,” put him out of the church if he lives like that.  That is a person who has come to the church and professed faith in Christ and has been received into the church now, he is the one that you put outside.

He uses the language of insiders to the church and outsiders to the church.  Now this is language that we would be terribly uncomfortable with using if we didn’t see it in the Bible.  Usually if you talk about considering other people as outsiders, it means you’re being exclusive or your prejudiced or something like that.  But here that’s the language Paul uses.  Verse 12, he says, “I’m not here to cast judgment on anybody who is a pagan, who is outside the church.”

He says, verse 12, “What business is it of mine to judge those outside?”- the outside persons.  Verse 13, “God will judge those outside” on the day of judgment in his own time.  But in verse 12, the second half of it, Paul says, “But you are to judge those inside.”

In other words, congregations knew who was part of their body, and congregations knew who were on the outside.  And as Mark Dever said, You cannot formally exclude someone if he is not been formally included in the first place.”  And so Paul’s insider and outsider language is describing what today we call, church membership.

Just a few months later, Paul wrote the letter of 2nd Corinthians to the same people.  And there, in chapter 2, we learn that the man who had been excommunicated had repented, had come back, asked forgiveness, and Paul is urging them to receive him back into the church.

2nd Corinthians 2 verse 6: “The punishment inflicted on this man by the majority is sufficient for him.  Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him so he won’t be overwhelmed with excessive sorrow.”  The phrase that’s interesting to us in here is the phrase “the punishment inflicted on him by the majority.” In other words, it seems like they actually counted how people voted, how people thought.

And in summary then, New Testament congregations knew who belonged to them, and who didn’t. In today’s language, they had a clearly defined membership.  Excommunication, as is clearly taught in the Bible by both Jesus and the epistles, is a meaningless idea without church membership.  The New Testament church had church membership.

Now the next major principle is this:  The New Testament teaching about the authority that Christ gave the church is meaningless without membership.

You recall in Matthew 16, verse 19, that Jesus spoke of church authority when he spoke of giving the keys of the kingdom to Peter and later in other passages to the other apostles and later to elders, they have the same kind of authority.

What does that mean?  Well, a person with keys locks and unlocks doors.  A person with keys determines who is admitted into the building, and who is not admitted into the building.  And so Paul, for instance, used the keys to shut the door by excommunicating the man in 1st Corinthians chapter 5, but then he used the keys to unlock and open the door and welcome the man back in again when he was restored in second Corinthians chapter 2. Jesus spoke of church authority when giving keys of the kingdom to Peter and the others.

Jesus also spoke about a church’s authority when speaking about binding and loosing.  Do you remember?  Peter, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.  It’s roughly the same idea as the keys.  He’s using language there that was common among the Jewish leaders of Jesus’s day, both of the temple and of the synagogues.  In Jesus’s day, the religious leaders had the authority to bind certain things and loose certain things.  That is the authority to forbid certain thing (to bind), and to allow certain things (to loose).  

Now, we’re saying that Jesus gave authority of the church through keys and through binding and loosing.  But there’s another passage that tells how to use that authority.  And this other passage which is in 1st Peter 5 says that the New Testament limits this kind of church authority to the oversight of members.  Not to just every Christian indiscriminately.  The keys (the binding and loosing) was to be used to admit people into church life, and was to be used to guide them and oversee their church life where that guidance was necessary, and if necessary, to discipline them.  That’s the idea.

1st Peter 5, verse 1: “To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder.” Verse 2: “Be shepherds of God’s flock.”  Oh, that’s a daunting verse if you’re an elder or pastor.  I mean, God has a mighty big flock.  In Elverson, in Morgantown, in Chester County, in Pennsylvania, in the United States, in the whole world.  How much of God’s flock am I supposed to shepherd?  How much should elders be responsible for?  But no, Peter qualifies it.  

He says in verse 2, “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care.”  So okay, he limits their responsibility to something more reasonable, and he describes that limiting more carefully in verse 3.  He says, “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.” Now one of his points of course is to be an example, don’t lord it over people, show gentleness, show servanthood, don’t wave your authority like a banner.

But for the point of our sermon, we’re interested in the phrase, when he says not lording it over “those entrusted to you.”  “Those entrusted to you” is a word that means “not lording it over your allotment.”  Not lording it over your portion.  Not lording it over your share.  Peter is saying that elders have authority and are responsible for people, but they’re only responsible for some people.  It’s an identifiable group.  

Otherwise, it’s — it’s just an overwhelming task.  And so the verse, “to shepherd those, not lording out over those who are entrusted to you, not lording it over your lot, your portion, your share” - implies a limited number.  We believe that that limited number is members, that is people who have asked to be shepherded and made a commitment to the church.  As Paul said, “Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.” 

Pastors and elders are responsible for only so many.  And people in the pews are only responsible to so many.  

* Epilogue by Pastor Al Kimball:

So the new principles introduced by Steve are:

The sacraments, baptism and communion, are integrally tied to local church membership.  

The New Testament congregations knew who belonged to them and who did not.  Without clearly defined membership, the Bible’s teaching regarding excommunication is meaningless.  

And the New Testament teaching about the authority Christ gave the church is meaningless without membership.

And the last principle derived from previous principles is this:  

Church membership is not a mere private decision.  For the good of all, God requires elders to make an informed judgement regarding a person’s profession.

These sermon clips are taken from a sermon preached on November 7th, 2021 titled “I Will Build My Church, Part E”.