140. Freedom In Finding A Church - Part 2 - Church Membership

Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. We are excited to have you here today. And Brett, man, it's crazy to think that we are 140 episodes in today. 1-4-0 is the number for today, which is crazy to think that we are that far. Man, we have been recording for many years now and recently had you jump on the podcast with us. And man, it's been great. How many episodes have you been on? Let me look back here as we're talking. You came on in episode 115. 115. So 115 is when you came on. And now we're at episode 140. So what's that, 25 episodes? Is that right? That sounds right to me. Yeah, 25 episodes in the recording, in the hot seat. And man, it's been great. At the time of this recording, when it comes out, we're going to be in Nicaragua. And we're going to be there with Mr. Lee and our two teams from our churches. And man, I'm pumped about it. I can't wait. I can't wait to be there. And I will be giving some updates after the trip about some things on the podcast about what the Lord's been working with us on. But man, we are pumped about going. This will be my one, two, three, four, five, six times out of the country. So man, I am excited. I know this is your first time on a mission trip out of the country. You've been to Israel. But this will be your first time out of the country. So man, talk to me about what you're excited and what you're feeling. I'll tell you what, it's been a crazy, crazy week trying to get everything together to get ready to go out of the country. You know, you've got to go to the bank and you've got to get fresh bills. Did you get some? Did you get me some fresh bills? Oh, yeah. I got you. I figured. I figured, man. You're a big time senior pastor. And then I've got to go buy some luggage. Because I tell you what, when I went to Israel, I carried that duffel bag. And I ain't doing that no more. So we're going to get some luggage with some wheels on it. And, man, I'm looking forward to it. It almost seems like the trip would never get here. We've been planning it for so long. And I know you've been planning this trip a lot longer than I have. You've been waiting for many years to go on this trip. And so we're excited about it. We had a little meeting last night at the church with our group. We're just doing some last-minute planning, getting our hotels for the airport, and figuring out who's driving, who's staying with who. And, you know, all the little details you've got to get worked out to do this stuff. So we're excited about it. We can't wait. We're looking forward to it. And this time next week, we're going to be sipping that Nicaraguan coffee, I guess, down here. Oh, man. I can't wait. It's going to be so good. And, yeah, I've been planning this trip since pre-COVID, right after COVID. We were trying to plan it, and then it didn't work out. It fell through, and then church transitions. And so now it's finally coming around. Me and Lee come. A funny story about Lee, Brett. He came to our church to meet our mission team, and he calls me, and he goes, Hey, man, I'm at your church, but I don't see you anywhere. And I'm like, okay. Like, I'm here. I see you. Like, where are you at? He's like, I'm in the sanctuary. So I walk in the sanctuary. I couldn't find him. I said, Lee, where are you at? He said, I'm at Sulphur Springs Baptist Church in Rutherford. He was in, like, 14 counties over. And he was, like, an hour and a half away. He was at a different church, an hour and a half away, same name. And he was like, dude, I should have asked, like, what town you're from. I just typed in Sulphur Springs Baptist Church, and the first one that came up is when I went to. And I'm like, well, I went to the service. He shows up at the end of the service to meet our team, and we're, like, right in the middle of eating pizza. And he comes in, and I'm like, hey, welcome to church. That was our first initial meeting of each other, and we had a great time. And we are so pumped about going and being down there, and I know you are as well. And then we'll be having our meetup coming up here soon. We got the big news from JC about they're moving into a new building. Yes. I'm assuming that the meetup will be in that new building at Catoosa or Chattanooga or Ringgold, wherever it's going to be. Ringgold. So, hey, so now you don't have to try to pronounce Fort Oglethorpe anymore. Yeah, I don't have to try to pronounce Fort O anymore, and I can just say Ringgold. Ringgold. That's going to be good. It's exciting for him. You know, any time a church can go, and this will be a topic we're going to talk about at the end of this series, from two services to one, just to create more unity, I believe is better. And so I'm excited about him being able to do that, having more room for his children's ministry. And so, man, we are pumped about seeing that going on, and the Lord's just blessing over there. And I love being able to just fan the flame and excited about what God's doing with him. Amen. Amen. Yeah, I'm excited about it. I saw that post on Facebook and went and looked. You know, as soon as I seen it, I went and I got the address. I went and Google Earthed it. That's what I like to do. Google Earthed Street View. And so I Google Earthed his new building. And, man, it looks big. It's going to have plenty of room, and I'm so happy for him. Yeah, me too. Me too. And then as of right now, we're still planning on our Israel trip coming up in the February, March of next year. And so that's right around the corner. If you're interested in that, that information's on our website. And you can find out more information about that. Brett, anything else? Anything exciting going on in your life? You're back in school, man. You're... Yeah, this is my second week of classes, going to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, working on my master's. And so we are, you know, I got ChatGPT writing my essays and my book. Amen. So, you know, using technology to my advantage. And so, no... Is that allowed? Can you do ChatGPT to write your essays? That's a negatory. Okay. Well, here's the thing. Like, you... It all needs to be original work. But you can use ChatGPT... And they told me this. You can use ChatGPT to, like, check your grammar, check your punctuation. You know, that is extremely helpful. That's good. I never thought about that. Yeah. But you can... But, you know, you write it all original yourself. And you can use ChatGPT to, you know, double check all your punctuation. Because I'm always unsure of where to put the commas. And that always gets me. Well, and for me, you know, I'm horrible at that as well. And I used ChatGPT the other day for something that I needed. I couldn't figure out something. And so, I just put in, like, what my thought was. And it came up with it. I thought it was really cool. But my website guy for our church website, PGBCRonda.com, he built our website with ChatGPT. And he uses AI and ChatGPT every single day of his life because he's a coder and an engineer for website design and IT. And he said it cuts his time in half of having to find a code and having to put something in. He said he has it up and he'll type in, I need this code for this scenario. And it'll pop it up and he'll put it in the website design. But when you go to our website, I went to him and I was like, dude, you're like a wordsmith. Your verbiage on our website is incredible. And he said, well, what I did was he said I created a ChatGPT flow for the website. And I put in, like, some words that we would want to use nestled into the community. You know, some really cool verbiage. And so every time I would go to a new page, I would just say I need an intro for the pastor's page. And he put my stuff in, my gist of what it was. And then it reworked my info with this new verbiage. Dude, it was incredible to be able to watch and to see how he was doing it. But I was so impressed. It was awesome. Oh, yeah. It really is. It really is a good tool. And like that, you know, I was listening to a professor the other day. And he said, listen, you can't use ChatGPT to write your reports and write your, you know, your essays and your research papers. But if you don't use ChatGPT at all, you're going to get left behind. If you need to use it for research, if you need to find resources, if you need to use it to check your grammar, your punctuation, do it. Because, you know, the way the world is now, if you don't use it at all, you're going to get left in the dust. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Well, excited about that. Been praying for you for that. And excited about you getting your doctorate. Is that right? Or master's? Master's. Master's. Been praying for that. After that, we'll talk to Marcus Merritt about the doctorate. That's right. That's right. Get it from old Luther Rice. Luther Rice. So, hey, man, excited about that. Well, let's get this show started. I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. Those that criticize this kind of preaching, they don't like authority. If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got, hey, if you don't have a King James, you don't have a Bible. And it'd be surprised. Son, don't go to sleep while I'm talking. Hey, hey, hey, don't you lay your head back. I'm important. I'm somebody. I love you. You know I love you. Have I convinced you I love you? Yeah. You better nod your head. Yes. All right. Come on. Put it right there. Stay awake and you listen to me. I still believe if you have cold day and healthy pride, give my balance a woman. I'm a preacher. When you got dressed today, you dressed deity. This is the For Freedom podcast, a podcast that is part of the RFP network that seeks to bring freedom in Christ from the spiritual abuse of legalism. And so fundamentalism is designed to unpack the idea of authority from scripture. The problem with that is that that's not the defining principle in scripture. It is a part of the scripture. But the defining principle in scripture is love. I found my freedom in you. I found my freedom in you. I found a joy I can't lose. And thank God it's true. You wrapped your arms around me. And heaven broke through. From the moment you found me, I found my freedom in you. Welcome to the For Freedom podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Saferin and Brett Martin. Welcome back to everyone. We are excited to have you here. Very much enjoy that mashup intro. We're still tweaking it a little bit and trying to make it the best we can. And excited about this series that we're in right now. Freedom on how to find a church. Oftentimes when we begin to start over and we begin to figure out life. Part of this is just trying to figure out what we do and how we can find a church. And so last week we started out with just what is the church. And we began that as our part one. Today we're going to look at membership and how do we define church membership. And Brett's going to give us an opening story. But before we do that, we're going to play a couple of sermon clips that we've pulled off to help us define what maybe we have heard in the past about membership. But with all prepare me also a lodging. I wrote down this. I said, the refreshing servant is a generous servant. He's caring for his pastor's physical needs. He's generous. Nothing encourages me more. And I'm not saying this to be self-serving or dropping hints because I want this. But it's so encouraging when I will show up somewhere and somebody has just gotten there with a Starbucks. That's always encouraging to me. I don't know if they think they're getting brownie points, but they are. They are. They are. If they're doing it because they love their pastor, that's refreshing. And nothing's, listen, if you're one of these people that are going to sit back and be bitter all the time and be mad because this kind of sermon is preached and you got convicted. And listen, it's not going to surprise you. You're not going to ever want to do anything for your pastor. You're not going to want to do anything for him. It's not going to be something like in the middle of the day you think, Oh, go get my pastor a sweet tea or I'm just going to stop in and see him. Or I'm going to do something to encourage him physically. I'm going to go by and see if his lawn needs mowed. Thank you. Mowed my lawn today. I know what you're thinking. Oh, man, what's he thinking? This guy's a slave? That's exactly how I finally even thought when he got the letter from Paul. He's a slave. No, Paul just said, Hey, I'm coming. Take care of me. Just take care of me. That's refreshing. And I'm preaching this from the standpoint of trying to help you to be the best Christian, the best church member. Do you want to just sit like a bump on the log and not be productive? Or would you like to be part of something that's exciting? To say that you had your hands on it, that you were part of it. Listen, when Philemon left this world and went to heaven, I guarantee you, God said, Hey, Onesimus is really doing something for me. And if you wouldn't have taken him in, he would have never done it. Brett, give us your thoughts, man. Dude, talk about toot your own horn. Just nonsense, bro. Just know scripture, know Jesus, self-serving, put me on a pedestal. You know, ministry is getting the pastor Starbucks. You know, this is just not what ministry is. This is not what church membership is. It's not what being a part of a church means, is to serve the pastor. I don't know what passage he's preaching from. He's not preaching from any passage. It's just a bunch of, like, self-serving nonsense to me. And so, I don't know. Oh, Bill Reed for the win there. Yeah. You know, this is, do I, do I as a pastor enjoy when someone buys me a coffee or gives me a gift card on pastor appreciation? Man, it's great. It's a blessing. It's a blessing to our family. I tell them often, I'd rather you do something for my kids. They bear the brunt, and my wife, they bear the brunt of ministry more than I do. Like, they miss their dad and things. They miss their husband and things because he's doing ministry. And so, I'd rather you spoil them than me. But I had a pastor once, and he would walk into, he was a former pastor at church. He was never my pastor, but we spent a lot of time together, mentored me, and helped me. But there was a story that he would walk into a restaurant, and he'd look around and say, All right, who's buying the pastor's meal today? And that was his attitude when he walked in. Like, I shouldn't be buying my meal today. And I always thought it was the worst thing. I always, and even when, like, I'm at a restaurant, and the waiter will come up, and I'll say, Hey, I need the bill. And they'll say, Well, someone's already took care of it. I'm humbled, and I want to know who did it because I want to thank them. I want to properly, you know, give them appreciation. But oftentimes that'll happen, and I feel like I'm just so unworthy for that to happen. Like, it's not like I go in expecting it. And this is, man, it's, I'm your pastor, man. Come on. I expect this. I'm somebody. As our clip says, I'm somebody. I'm somebody. I'm somebody. Like, I expect this. And that is not what church membership is. That's not what a pastor is, this mentality. Now, I have a philosophy, and I've had it for a long time, that, because I used to try to refuse gifts. People would try to give me something, and I would deny it. And somebody told me one time, You shouldn't do that because you're denying that person a blessing. And I agree with that. And so if somebody tries to give me something, I might say something to the effect of, Oh, you didn't have to do that or whatnot. But I will accept it. But I don't expect just because I'm a pastor that I'm going to do that all the time. Yes, I'll go into restaurants, and people will, you know, pay for our meals. But then I'll turn around, and I'll pay for somebody else's meal, too, and not just expect to, you know, be paid or two all the time. And it's, you know, it's not that we're all supposed to help and care for each other and not just stand up behind a pulpit and preach. You know, you need to buy the pastor Starbucks all the time, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I agree with that. I agree with that 100%. Well, let's listen to what the great Bob Gray has to say about this. I would no more believe an ex-fundamentalist than I would an ex-church member, an ex-staff member, or an ex-wife. You've got to come up with all these new fang-dangled truths and nobody's ever heard of before. It's because they're not truth. Don't feel like you've got to be coming up with something new that nobody's ever heard of before. You get yourself in trouble. Bob Gray Sr. There you go. There you have it. Ex-wife, ex-church member, ex-fundamentalist. So it's just a scorched earth type mentality. Oh, if you leave my church, if you go somewhere else, you're automatically out of the will of God. You're automatically a reprobate if you're an ex-church member. If you leave my church and go somewhere else, just a scorched earth type mentality that I don't buy into at all. Look, God moves people. And just because somebody leaves your church and goes to another church doesn't mean that they're on a different team or they're against you. There might be something that caused it, but God might have just moved them. I had a family the other day that moved their membership, and there was no hard feelings. It was just God's will. You didn't excommunicate them? No. They bought me a Starbucks, and so I didn't have to do that. That's right. But, yeah, so this scorched earth mentality, if you leave, we're going to have to throw you under the bus, and we're going to have to talk bad about you. I just don't buy into it. Yeah, I've got someone that actually teaches with my wife, and she was in – we would call it a cult. They didn't call themselves a cult. I know exactly the church they went to. Everyone was homeschooled. Nothing against homeschool, but if you weren't homeschooled, you were living for the devil. Whether it was even a Christian school, you couldn't do that. She was in this isolated mentality where she – man, she couldn't do anything outside of this community, and it was very much oppressive. And so she got a job at the Christian school. Her kids started going to the Christian school, and she told my wife, she said, I feel like there's just a breath of fresh air. She said, but the sad part is I went to that church for eight or ten years, and she said, I'll see those people in Walmart, and I'll go to say hey to them because they were my friends. We ministered together. We did things together. And she said, they'll turn their face toward me – away from me and go in the opposite direction and won't even talk to me because I left the church. And I'm thinking, you know how sad of a Christian do you have to be that you won't even talk to someone in public because they're not part of your church anymore? Like I'll go through Walmart still. Fridays are my Walmart day when I go and get stuff, and I'll see old church members. And, man, I'll stop and hang out and talk to them, give them hugs. They'll tell me how much they love me. Like if that's not what loving one another is, then this whole mentality of if you're not part of our flock, you're done. You're dead to me. The Mr. Wonderful mentality has got to change drastically. You know, and it's not just IFB that's guilty of this. But if anybody's ever listened to the rise and fall of Mars Hill, part of Mark Driscoll's philosophy of ministry was forth to earth. Yeah. If you left the church, if you were a staff member, you couldn't just quit and go get another job. You couldn't quit the job working at the church and then stay a member without people shunning you, without signing NDAs and non-compete clauses. And you can't start a church in this city for a year after you leave here and just people turning their backs on people. And so, yeah, I just don't buy into that at all. Even if we're not part of the same local church, we're all part of the same universal church. And so we're all part of the bride of Christ. Yeah. Fun thing, Brett. I went back into what's called the Wayback Machine and I pulled out the original rise and fall intro with Mark Driscoll's statements in there with the King Kaleidoscope sticks and stones. Because they scrubbed it from all of their podcast episodes and they took out him speaking inside of there. So if you go back and listen, yeah, King Kaleidoscope was a little upset that they used Mark Driscoll in the song and they sort of became identified. Even though they came out of Mark Driscoll, they did a whole episode on it about how they didn't want it on there. So they went back and they took it out. So I had to go back in the Wayback Machine and pull out one of those old original episodes that was still on the internet. Just goes to prove you can't get rid of anything on the internet. And I pulled it out and I've got the original intro. Do you want me to play it for you real quick? Just for old times. Let's play it real quick. Heavy day. Why are we not looking at the deep-seated reasons for this? For the purpose of progress. Mark just came and said, if you plant a church, he's going to tear it down brick by brick. To a priest or a prophet. We have a culture of church members who would prefer a narcissist leading a church. Playing God in the process. How dare you! Who in the hell do you think you are? Was I chasing convenience? There's very real chronic trauma that comes from serving within systems like this. Way about disaster. There's a few guys, but if I wasn't going to end up on CNN, I would go Old Testament on them. Ready captain to captain. You know, a lot of pastors get fired. Driscoll got fired for being an asshole. I'm a puppets of pastor. Who do you think you are? From Christianity Today, this is Mike Cosper, and you're listening to The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. It's the story of one church that grew from a handful of people to a movement and then collapsed almost overnight. It's a story about power, fame, and spiritual trauma. Problems faced across the spectrum of churches in America. And yet, it's also a story about the mystery of God working in broken places. Listen, I could listen to Mike Cosper speak for hours and hours. Dude, I love his voice. I've listened to several of his other episodes that he does on Christianity Today. It's a great thing. Dude, hear what he said in there. He said, if you plant a church, we'll tear it down brick by brick. Because it was all about what his church was doing. Right. And that is the mentality of today. That's the mentality of what we're living in and what we're producing and the culture of church people that we are producing in this mega church movement that we're going to talk about a little bit next week or next time we, next episode we do. But we want to play one more clip by Bill Reeves, the great Bill Reeves here on membership. This is probably my favorite one of all of them that you sent me, Brett. I watched some of my church members on the parade route. They're sitting on the side. And the way they were dressed, I couldn't tell. There's no way anybody would have known they were church members here. You say, well, that's not important. If they can't tell you're a church member here, they dead sure can't tell you're a Christian there. Amen. Amen. Right. One good sign that you're a Christian is you don't dress like the world. You don't talk like the world. You don't walk like the world. You don't act like the world. You don't listen to the world's kind of music. That's a good, that pretty much sticks out. Doesn't it? And I guarantee you, it's harder for them to tell that you're different if you're dressed just like them. If you've got the same dress standards. 30 years ago, the men of the church would have been standing up, raising their Bible, saying, glory to God. Glory to God. We got a preacher of the word of God. He's willing to take a stand against the sin of this world. And today I sit in the church that I pastor. And I'm looking at people under conviction because they know they've gotten to a place in their life where they say, that's enough. That's not loving. That's not kind. And I'm here to tell you, friend, that is a lie. That is not true. Well, there you have it. If you don't look like a church member, then you're not a church member. You got to look right. You got to talk right. You got to act right. Even heard it today. I was at the middle school and we were joking around. And one of the guys who was a Christian, he had tattoos all down his arm. Brett, he had the Jerusalem cross tattoo that he got in Elkin. He didn't even have to go to Israel. I'm like, dude, I may have to go down to Elkin and get it. But he got to talking and he said, one of the church members was saying something and she was joking. And he goes, look at this. You got one of your church members over here lying. And I said, well, you know, what can I do with them? He said, all we can do is catch them and let the Lord clean them up. And he walked away. But I thought it was so good because I knew what we were talking about today. And I thought, man, that's so good. It's not our job to convict. It's not our job to change. It's our job just to catch them and let the Lord take care of the rest. And let the Lord convict them how he sees fit. You know, when I say this all the time, when we're to be when the Bible says we're to be separate from the world, it means we're to be separate from the world's sin. No, I want to read a passage of scripture right now. And I wonder if Bill Reeves, how this passage fits into that philosophy that he just that he has. First Corinthians 9 verse 19 says, though I am free and belong to no one. I've made myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible. To the Jews, I became like a Jew to win the Jews. To those under the law, I became like one under the law, though I myself am not under the law. So as to win those under the law. To those not having the law, I became like one not having the law, though I am not free from God's law, but I'm under Christ's law. So as to win those not having the law. To the weak, I became weak to win the weak. I became all things to all people so that by all means I might save some. I do this for the sake of the gospel that I may that I may share in its blessings. You listen, you want to reach people. You've got to talk. I'm not talking about like filthy language, but you got to talk with them. You got to dress like them. You want to reach farmers. You got to dress like a farmer. You want to reach businessmen. You got to dress like a businessman. You have to whoever you're trying to reach. You have to culturally identify with that person without sinning. So you'd be separate from the world's sin. And so it's just something that, you know, that really gets under my skin. Yeah. And, you know, Brett, by saying that, it reminded me of a illustration that Paul Chappell said a couple of years ago. Like him or not, he's a pastor out in California. Uh, does a lot of good things. Does a lot of bad things. Has had some different things in the church. But he made this illustration. I was at a pastor's leadership conference and he said that he was knocking on a guy's door. A really hard elder in the community. Not a part of the church or anything. And he went to the door in his, you know, slacks and polo, however he dressed for his visitation. And someone said, so-and-so, you need to go down and talk to so-and-so. He's, you know, we need, he should be in church. You know, he should, uh, he's hard. He's, he's against all religion. And he said, I went down there and I began talking to him. And he said, listen, man, I don't have time to talk to you at all. He said, I'm working on my garden. And I, I'm working my garden. And he said, well, do you need any help? And he said, I mean, if you want to, but you're dressed all nice, you got your suit pants on and you got your dress shoes on. And he said, Paul Chappell said, I went down into his garden with him and I helped plow his garden for 30 minutes with him. And he said, the guy stopped and looked at me and said, are you hungry? And he said, I mean, a little bit. And he said, he reached over and pulled an onion off of the branch there and just started gnawing on the onion and just eating it and tossed him one. I was like, here you go, pastor. Here's your lunch. Thanks for helping me. And he said, I realized at that point, I'm not a big onion guy, but if I don't eat this onion, he's not going to talk to me one bit anymore. He said, so I peeled the skin off and I took a big bite of it. It was a sweet Vidalia onion. It wasn't bad at all. And got to sitting there and just chewing and talking. And he said, well, he said, why'd you come out here today? He said, I shared the gospel with him. And now he's one of my deacons in my church. He said, all because I got down in the mud with him and I plowed his garden a little bit. And I got off my high horse and began serving him. And I said, so often that's where we need to be. We need to be willing to serve others so that they can come to hear the gospel and not just be on our high horse and say, well, bless God, you're going to do this for me. And I think this is where we get to the side of bearing one another's burdens, loving one another, being all things to all men that I might reach some. We get this mixed up massively. Now, James, I want to switch gears for just a minute if I could, because listen, I want to talk about inventions. There have been many great inventions over the years. I mean, you look back, you can look back at the wheel, the light bulb, radio, television. Now, fast food started with the invention of McDonald's. But probably the greatest invention known to man, and I don't know if you know this or not, it's Sam's Club. Sam's Club's the greatest invention. I don't care what anybody says. Sam's Club is the only place in the world where you can get your tires rotated, your eyes checked, buy a swimming pool, and then buy a vat of sour cream big enough to fill said swimming pool. Listen, when I go into a store, I don't want one pack of mac and cheese. I don't want three packs of mac and cheese. I want a big box of 18 and in Jokers. I want a bottle of ketchup bigger than my dog. And the only place you can get that is Sam's Club. I mean, God bless America. I mean, when you pull up into the parking lot of a Sam's Club, you can hear the eagles screeching. They're playing the national anthem off in the distance. I mean, there truly is nothing more American. But here's the thing. In order to go to Sam's Club, you have to be a member. You have to have a membership card. Look, Sam's Club is a beautiful, glorious, wondrous thing. Okay? If the Lord tarries one day in the future, archaeologists and anthropologists will study the phenomenon that was Sam's Club. Amen. But if you're not a member, you can't go. Now, as great as being a member of Sam's Club is, being a member of a church is not like being a member of Sam's Club. No, it's not. Okay, for instance, we have Verizon for our phones. A couple of months ago, all the AT&T customers, they all went down. We still had service on our phones because we had Verizon. So we have a subscription with them for phone service. So is being a member of a church like subscribing to Verizon? No, because the church is not a club, nor is the church a spiritual service provider. But too many Christians today treat it like it is, but it's not. A lot of Christians today don't think that church membership is important, either because, number one, they don't go that often, or, number two, they're not a member of the church they're attending. But so it's not important to them. But church membership is important. And we're going to talk a few minutes today about church membership. Absolutely. And if you were here last week and you tuned in, if not, pause it and go listen. Last week we discussed defining the church and what the church looked like. That needs to be the starting point because, as you know, before you build anything in a construction, you must have a good foundation. And so if we don't understand the foundation of the church and what it's designed for, then everything else will fall apart. And so one of the things we noticed from this biblical narrative is that God has intended to have a created people for himself that would display his glory. We noted last week from Ephesians 3.10 that the church is not an option, but it's the central part of the plan to display God's glory. So the question we have to ask today, what happens and what is the biblical definition and narrative of church membership? Because how do we understand from scripture what church membership is and how do we understand when we begin to represent his name in an unjust way? And so 1 Corinthians 5 is where we'll look at today, 1 Corinthians 5, 1 through 7. And it says this, So Brett, what's going on in this passage here? What's the process of what's happening here? So what we have here is we have a man is sleeping with his father's wife, and the congregation is actually tolerating it. They're looking the other way. They're putting it in the corner. They're sweeping it under the rug. So Paul calls on the church to remove him and to hand him over to Satan, not for the ultimate goal of his destruction, but for his restoration, which brings up one of my things that I've always said is I actually don't like calling it church discipline, even though that's what it is. You know, because the goal of the end goal of the process is not to discipline the person and that be the end of it. The end goal of it is to restore the person. So instead of calling it church discipline, one of the things I like to say is we call it church restoration because the end goal is we want to restore that person. But the question still comes up, and so the situation happens, so it begs the question, remove him from what? Yeah. Okay. What are we removing him from? Well, that's what we need to clarify. I mean, the answer I think we'll find is church membership. That's what we're removing him from. But again, we need to listen to what Scripture teaches on this rather than the ideas of man. So the church represents heaven. So if we look at Matthew 16, in the first part of the chapter, we find Jesus warning the apostles not to trust the teaching of Israel's leaders. They were self-righteous and so missed Jesus. Their proud self-reliance blinded them from seeing Jesus for who he really is. So Jesus then turns to Peter and says in Matthew 16, 15, who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answers, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus affirms Peter's answer and then says, and I tell you, you are Peter. On this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Okay, so this is the first of two times that Jesus talks about the church in the Gospels. And notice he connects the church to the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Now, last week we talked about the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. It's God's people in God's place under God's rule. So what's the connection between the kingdom of heaven that Jesus talks about in verse 19 and the church in verse 18? Well, the church is meant to display on earth who he is and who isn't in the kingdom of heaven. And specifically, when Jesus talks to Peter, he's interested in what and who and what is right confession and who is a right confessor. Okay. Yeah. What do you think about it, James? Yeah, absolutely. And this is the mindset of all of a sudden we have Jesus's teaching on the church here. Jesus is saying, hey, the Old Testament is here for as a guide to show you what it's going to be. And Jesus is coming in and he's setting up this kingdom of God. Jesus exercises and begins to give this authority toward Peter. And then he goes a step further and he says, Jesus begins to give Peter and the apostles the same authority, the authority to stand in front of the confessor and hear his or her confession and then announce official judgment on heaven's behalf. And so that is and isn't a right confession. And it also is and isn't a true confession. We have to understand that whoever is holding the keys to the kingdom of heaven has heaven's authority not to make Christians, but to declare what or who is a Christian. And we do this through two different ways. We do this through baptism and we do this through the Lord's Supper. And so in Matthew 16, the apostles are holding the keys. And then all of a sudden in Matthew 18, Jesus begins to put the keys of heaven into the hands of the local church. So look at Matthew chapter 18, verse 15. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. And if he listens, you've gained a brother. But if it does not listen, take two or three along with you and that every one charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell to it to the church. And if he refuses to listen, even to the church, let him be as done to you like a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say unto you, whatever you bind here on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose here on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So when a man's confronted with a couple of times over his sins, we see here in verse 17, it says, tell it to who? Who's he telling it to? The church. He doesn't go to the pastor. He's not going to a committee. He's not going to the apostles. He's not going to a presbytery. Presbytery. He is going to the church. And the final court of appeal is to the church. The local church has been given the authority under heaven to guard what has been given through the gospel. Who and what on earth represents heaven. They hold the keys to it. They unlock the doors to heaven. In other words, they bind and they loose in verse 18 what it says there. So Jesus has authorized the local church to stand in front of the confessor and to consider the confessor's confession, to consider his or her life, and announce an official judgment on heaven's behalf. This is the right confession. It's the true confession, just like Jesus did to Peter. And so these keys are exercised through baptism and the Lord's Supper. We exercise this in these two ways. And so he begins to go through this spiritual symbolism of the baptism. The baptism is a picture of the union with Christ in both his death and resurrection. But baptism not only symbolizes our union with Christ, but it's the Christian way of associating him or herself with God's people. We're baptized into the body of Christ. And then we get to the Lord's Supper. Baptism is done one time. You don't get baptized every single week. You don't get baptized every day. You get baptized one time, which brings you into this. It's a symbol of bringing you into the family. And then the Lord's Supper is done regularly. It's done in a way of displaying God's grace. And so it's done in a way of reminding us what Christ has done for us through his shed blood and through his crucified body so that we can become part of the body of Christ again. We can be remembered in this through the Lord's Supper. It can be tough to remember this. It can be tough to always examine ourselves, to be able to ask ourselves what is right and what is wrong. But the glory of God is supremely important. And it's important for the individuals because they're telling each other the truth about our state before God rather than deceiving or flattering. I don't have to get up and say, you should be wearing this or wearing that or doing this or doing that. The Lord's Supper is what does that. The Lord's Supper is what convicts us and turns our heart back toward him. And so baptism and the Lord's Supper are oaths of signs which we take to one another. We profess Christ and we affirm one another as Christian members of another church. And it's through the baptism and the Lord's Supper that we are as individual Christians working together to constitute a local church and its membership. And Jesus authorizes the Christian to do this by giving us the keys. You know, this conversation of keys in the word of God is very interesting because when keys are given, when keys are given in the Bible, keys represent power and authority. Jesus was given the keys to death and hell, meaning he has power and authority over death and hell. But here we see Jesus give the keys to Peter. And when he does that, I believe he's given the keys by extension to all the apostles because the church, the early first century church before they had the New Testament was built on the apostles. So they were the foundation. Peter didn't get the keys because he was the first pope. He got the keys because he was an apostle. And by extension, all the apostles got the keys. Those keys gave the apostles spiritual authority. OK, the apostles were given the right to start and rule the church. But the apostles aren't going to be with us forever. So Jesus also gives that authority to the church also. So the church has the church has the right to rule itself within the confines of the local congregation. Now, you remember the definition of the local church that we talked about last week. A local church is a group of Christians who regularly gather in Christ's name because, you know, the church is fundamentally a gathering, a people, not just a building. To officially affirm and oversee one another's membership in Jesus Christ and his kingdom, the gospel preaching and gospel ordinances. I put a Facebook on today that said, you know, fundamentally, you know, the the building is not the church. The people are the church. So we don't go to church. We go to worship because we are the church. Now, a few things are coming into greater focus as we talk through this. It's official because only the church has been granted authority for the keys, not an individual or subcommittee. It's a gathering. But that gathering is further defined with the purpose of affirming and overseeing each other's membership in Christ in his kingdom. It's through the gospel because that's how God makes Christians and the ordinances because that's the church's instrument to exercise the keys. OK, so let's ask the question, who is church membership for? Now, all this talk about keys and binding and loosing, it raises an important question. What's the biblical criteria for getting in? That's an important question, because what we're talking about is more than just fitting in. It's a matter of eternity. It's eternal significance. So so is like a country club where you need to know the right people or you need to drive a certain type of car. Is is is is it like that or is it like the military where you need to be able to do a certain number of push ups and pull ups? You know, of course, I would meet those requirements. I can do 100 pull ups with one hand. So absolutely to answer that. Let's turn our attention back to the gospel of Matthew. Who in Matthew does Jesus make a heavenly citizen, which is to say a member of the church? Matthew 5, 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 7, 21. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. But the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Matthew 10, 32. Everyone who acknowledges me before man. Men, I also will acknowledge before my father who is in heaven. Matthew 18, 4. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. So these are the people whom the church is to receive. The poor in spirit. Those who follow God's will. Those who acknowledge Christ. Those who humble themselves like a little child. And we kind of see a pattern here. Christianity and therefore church membership. It's not for the strong. It's not for those who have their acts together. It's for broken people. And who are determined. These people are determined to follow their own wills. They do it their way. It's for those who have tried and failed. They tried to do it their own way. But they fail miserably at it. So who is it for? It's for the teenagers who had certain moral ideas. Went off to college. Fell into sin. It's for mothers who've tried really hard to be the perfect mothers. And disappointed themselves. It's for the retirees who have reached the end of their careers. And looked back and realized it was all about me. And my selfish ambitions. And now what do I have? What do you think about that? Yeah, I think it's so interesting. Because one of the things you just said was they tried. They went off to college. And they failed and realized they needed Christ. I've got a lady that is going on our mission trip. And I don't think she'd mind me sharing this. She said, in my teenage years, I wanted to share the love of Christ. But I feared that pride often stood in their way. I found myself hanging out in the wrong crowd. I didn't stand up for my beliefs. My family attended church all throughout my life. And in my youth, and she said, I started to go to college. I became busy with unimportant things and often made excuses about not attending church. I grew further and further away from Christ. And when I was 22, I became an unwed mother. Through my pregnancy, I became closer to Jesus than ever before. I began to surround myself with him and walk daily with him. My relationship with him changed from knowing him and knowing about him from truly walking every day with him. And since then, I've went through many trials and temptations throughout my steps following Jesus. And I think that's where it's at. It's we begin to go through this life where we think we've got it all together. And because we were raised in church and we're pastor's kids or whatever it may be, we have this thing figured out. But it's about those who have struggled and those who need redemption. Christianity and church membership is for people who have reached the end of themselves. That's why Matthew 9, 12 says, The heavenly father, he chose an unbelievably humbling way to represent himself and her on earth. Not with a morally perfect, but a morally broken, a group of people that were sinners that hates the facts they're sinners. And they turned from their sin and put their faith in the righteousness of Christ. That's who he chose to represent him here on earth. And we're here. We're created for good. We did bad. Christ lived humble, meek, and perfect life that we should have lived. He died on the cross that sacrificed to pay the penalty that we deserved for doing bad. And now he calls every single one of us who are poor in spirit, who hungers and thirsts after righteousness to turn away from their sin and follow him as their savior. There's a diagram that we came across. It's called the membership triangle. And we're going to define this triangle. We'll put it in our show notes if it'll let us put an image there. But the triangle goes like this. At the top of the triangle, there's elders and pastors. And at the bottom of the triangle, there's ourselves and the congregation. So you personally in the congregation. And so when we begin to look at this, one of the helpful ways we can relate to this is how we're relatable to one another. The Bible says we should love one another. Romans 15, 1. We who are strong have obligation to bear the fallings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Romans 12, 13, and 15, 16. Conride to the needs of the saints and show hospitality. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. We should encourage one another. We should guard one another and we should obey the leaders that have been placed in front of us. And so the elders are responsible for oversight to each individual person. And they're also commanded to equip and shepherd the congregation. So the elders have responsibility. But we ourselves, if we're looking at just us, have the opportunity to have obedience to the elders. But then we're accountable to the congregation. The congregation is accountable to ourselves. But they're also there to recognize the elders and say, hey, we've placed these people in authority over us. And so the New Testament calls us to relate to each other within the church in a specific role and a manner. And so, Brett, what's your thoughts on that as we begin to wrap this thing up a little bit today? I mean, I'll tell you that I love being a member of a church. And, you know, I have had some bad experience. I've had good experiences. But my word to people would be, listen, if you've been hurt by a church, like say some, I know people who've been hurt by a church. So they leave that church and they find another church and then they get hurt at that church, too. But I would encourage not to give up because one of the greatest things about church is when you find the right church and you're where God wants you to be. It is a great thing because not only do we as a church members, do we love one another like you just mentioned, but we encourage one another. Hebrews 10, 24, 25. Consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day drawing near. And then, you know, we guard one another. And so all these things we love and encourage. And listen, I am just so thankful to be a part of a church, even if I wasn't a pastor. I still love church. And I think it's one of the greatest things that that Jesus left for us here. I also think that. The closest thing we have to what heaven's actually going to be like is the church. Absolutely. I think when you're in the church, that is the closest thing on this planet. That is is going to be what heaven. It's a little taste of heaven on earth. And so I'm all for it. And I think that church membership is a great thing. And if you're not a member of a church, you need to find a church. If you're going to a church, you've been going there for a while because we have this, too. I have people that go to a church and they've been there for years. They haven't joined. They haven't become a member because, you know, membership is just not that important. It really is important. It's important that where you're at, where you're being fed, you make that commitment. I am going to be a part of this family. I'm going to partake with them. I'm going to throw in with them. I'm going to commit with them. And I think it's just church membership is is very important, even though it's not explicitly stated in Scripture. We see it. The Trinity is not in Scripture. And we believe the Trinity. Well, just because the word church membership is not in the Bible doesn't mean that membership is not there. It is there. And we definitely need to be a part of a local church. Yeah. And the last thing we'll bring up is because this is a hard one to talk about is obeying our leaders. Hebrews 13, 17 says, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your soul and those who have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage of you. And so the question we have to ask ourselves is if there is no such thing as church membership, which elders are we supposed to submit ourselves to? Every elder that we see in the community? Which congregation are we to submit ourselves to? Every congregation in the community? Who's going to give us church discipline? Every single Christian in the community that we see? There is this type of individualism that we begin to see here in church membership. And membership is simply put like this. It's a self-conscious commitment to other Christians to love, guard, and encourage. A submission to their authority as the congregation. And submitting to the elders in that congregation to give oversight to you. And that's what Christ has called us to do. He's called us to submit ourselves into authority under the elders, but then to be accountable with the congregation as well. And this is what true membership looks like. This is where we're able to guard one another and look out for one another and love one another and to encourage one another because we're together in a community. Exactly. You know, we are to obey our leaders, submit to them in the church. And I take that as the church. The pastor of the church does have a certain amount of authority. There is an inherent authority that comes from that comes as in the pastor role. But at the same time, the Bible tempers what that authority can do. You can't stand up behind a pulpit and guilt your congregation into giving you Starbucks and mowing your grass. Okay. In fact, first Peter chapter five says, therefore, I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ and partaker. I think, oh, Bill Reeves, you know, he's our poster child for this episode. But this passage of scripture is just a polar opposite of what he preaches in his church. Yes, the pastor has authority, but he's not to abuse that authority. He's not a dictator. He's a servant leader because that's what Christ was. And he's our example. Absolutely. Love it. Love this series. I can't wait to be in Nicaragua with you. I hope you've enjoyed this. If you ever have any questions or comments, reach out to us. Brett, I have had more people in the last two weeks reach out to me. It's been an encouragement to me to know that people are listening. We're encouraging one another. We're lifting up one another and that people are being helped by our episodes. And so I appreciate you reaching out to us. I appreciate you coming and talking to us. If you want to direct message us, one guy messaged me on my phone and I've just been talking with him and it's been great. And so anything we can do to help, it's been be a good thing. If you're looking for a church in the area, man, who hook us up? You may be in an area where me and Brett both maybe know someone in that area. It was crazy. A story where I was at an association meeting and a pastor was talking about his mom, how she was needing help in Mississippi. And I said, we're at Mississippi. Come to find out she's literally in Brett's back door and people in their church knew that. And they were members of Brett's church and years and years ago. And Brett and his community were able to go out and help them. But if we didn't, if we didn't talk about it, if we didn't communicate and we didn't know these things and we wouldn't be able to help each other. And so we're here to help each other in a mighty way. And we just thank you guys for tuning in. And if there's anything you can ever do for us, let us know. And we look forward to continuing these talks. But until next time, to God. Not the pastor. Be the glory. Amen. I found my new name. I found that good grace. I found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning that has no ending. I found that second chance. I found my best friend. I found my forgiveness. I found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. For Freedom Podcast. The End

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