Acts 2 - What Should A Church Be
Tom Shrader explores what constitutes a biblical church by examining the early church in Acts 2:37-47. He identifies four core activities from the Jerusalem church - devotion to apostolic teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer - and expands these into seven marks of a healthy church. Shrader emphasizes that church is primarily an organism of believers gathered for worship, not an organization focused on attracting people and money.
“Church is not an organization made up of programs and methods dedicated to attracting money and members - it's an organism, it's alive, it's people moving, feeling, aching, hurting, filled with sorrow and joy.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: The Rest of the Story
Recorded: July 30, 1992
Duration: 43 min
Themes: church, fellowship, community, worship, teaching, prayer, commitment, belonging, church shopping, new believer, church hurt, questioning faith, seeking community, pastor, church leader, spiritual seeker
Scripture: Acts 2:37-47, Acts 2:41, Acts 2:42, Acts 5, Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5, 1 Timothy 3
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church structure, apostolic teaching, biblical authority, body of christ, church membership, corporate worship, spiritual community
Full Transcript
For the last three or four weeks we've looked at what we've added as a series here at the end of the summer. We've tried to pick up on the life of Peter. Let Peter's life launch us into a study in the book of Acts, and that study follows Peter as he gets his marching orders and in a sense ours also. We looked at the first revival meeting ever held, and actually today we'll go back and give you the rest of that story.
Last week we looked at your biography, and what it actually was was the life of Paul. Acts chapter 9 is one of those marvelously significant chapters in which although the study is about Paul, the focus applies to you. We looked at Paul's life, essentially Paul's conversion, and in doing that we see between your conversion and mine circumstantially different, substantially the same.
Today we deal with a question that may to some of you seem either inappropriate or even unnecessary, but it's a question that we get frequently because of who we are and the people that we work with at different levels: what should a church be? It occurred to me that really we needed to do two lessons here. We really mistitled this - we should have entitled this "What to Expect from a Church" and we should have a follow-up "What the Church Should Expect from You," but we didn't do that.
The Question Many Are Asking
We're talking about a church, and although it may seem for some of you a topic that is maybe unnecessary because you are happy where you are, the majority of the people that are in the studies, the majority of the people that I meet, have some questions about church. There are some of you who are involved in church but something's missing. You don't know what it is. Perhaps today we can help you identify it and you'll go "yep, that's it right there."
Others of you just have never been to church. We have a surprising number of people who just have never been around the church. I remember meeting with one guy for quite a while and convincing him that if he was really a Christian, he needed to be part of the local church. "Can't I worship God at Desert Highlands on Sunday morning playing golf?" Sure you can. Highly unlikely you will, but sure you could. More likely you'll use His name in vain than in worship, but nonetheless it's a possibility. But for the Christian, ultimately my deepest desire or one of them is to be with God's people, so church becomes mandatory.
There are others of you that have been in churches and you feel burnt, beat up, abused. You mention church and it's like that dog that's been beaten - you raise your hand and it cowers, and you do too. Well, that shouldn't be either.
Setting the Ground Rules
So today we look at this issue of church, and let me get some issues on the table up front and get them out of the way. We are not today in the process of bashing any denomination or denominations or any particular church. Any of these stories or illustrations or pictures, if they strike at all close to your situation, you need to understand that that would purely be circumstantial coincidence. What we're dealing with are broad issues.
Defining the Church
When we talk about the church, there's definition. Chuck Swindoll defines church this way: he said church is "the ever-enlarging body of born-again believers who comprise the universal body of Christ over whom He reigns as Lord." That's Swindoll's definition of church, and it's a good definition, but it's a very broad definition, a very macro view of this, a huge view. He's speaking of the church as the church at large.
There's a sense I think in almost every denomination that they pick up this same idea that everyone who's a Christian - again Swindoll uses the phrase "born-again" to specify that it's a specific kind of Christian. It's the kind of Christian that has had an experience of heart and of mind that has caused him or her to personally acknowledge Jesus as their Lord and Savior. All of those people are linked.
I think it was 1964, but I could be wrong, it was one summer and I was 12 or 13 years old, and Pope John the 23rd wrote an encyclical entitled "The Mystical Body of Christ." I remember spending that summer not only playing baseball and all the things that I did in the summer, but I remember dissecting that encyclical. I remember spending hours and hours and hours with a marker and a pen and a line and a ruler to try to comprehend what he was writing in that encyclical. Indeed, the concept was very similar to this, except he would have taken out "born-again believer" and probably would have had the word "Catholic" in there to say that there's this mystical body experience of all of us.
From Universal to Local
Well, that's the big view. Now we try to bring it down. We're all part of the church universal, but when I say church, you typically don't think in those terms. You're thinking in local terms.
Let's take a look at this and then we'll come back to our study in the book of Acts and we'll see this beginning to flesh itself out. A church is not an organization made up of programs and methods dedicated to attracting money and members. Now here's what that doesn't say: it doesn't say that a church is not an organization and shouldn't have programs. The focus isn't attracting people and money.
Every Saturday morning you can pick up your paper. There's almost a full page of ads of churches trying to attract people. Many of the denominations are hemorrhaging. They're losing millions and millions, 25, 30, 40 percent of their people, and they're saying "What do we have to do to get new blood? Where do we find new people? What can we do to revitalize this?" And somebody has the boldness to raise their hand and say "But gee, what you're advocating isn't true." "Doesn't matter, are we going to get people?"
A church is not an organization that does that. It's an organism. It's alive - organization to be sure, but it's an organism. It's people. It's moving, feeling, aching, hurting, filled with sorrow and joy.
Secondly, a church is not buildings and offices. Now bricks and sticks are important, but it's not primarily offices and buildings which are dedicated to earthly display. "Come and look at our facility" - that's not primarily what a church is.
What a Church Is Not
A church is people together living, loving, learning, laboring, and leading together for the glory of Christ.
Lastly in this process of what it is and isn't, a church is not a worldly institution that simply takes the humanistic ideas of the world and applies them to man's personal and social problems. It's not primarily a political or social institution. I meet men and women all the time that say I'm going to a Christian counselor, and when you talk to them, what they're getting—and they don't even realize it—is humanistic counseling with a Bible verse stuck at the beginning and at the end. That's all it is. You have to feel good about yourself, blah blah blah blah blah. In fact, Jesus said that how you going to love anybody else if you don't love yourself first—a verse out of context, but a verse in there that makes it sound like it's biblical counseling.
The church is not something that's primarily concerned with the social, political, or even interpersonal relationships. A church primarily is an agitating force, a sort of opposition pricking your conscience in a sting salt solution of conviction for the purpose of causing men and women who are caught up in Satan's world to move, to be aware of their sin and their need for their Savior.
The Church Was Not Designed for Comfort
I mentioned a minute ago all those ads on Saturday morning—read them sometime: "Coming here, an inspirational message by an inspirational speaker in an inspirational setting. Come to our church, you will always be comfortable." The church was never designed to be comfortable.
If you go to church as a non-Christian, you should be uncomfortable. You're out of your league. They're in there talking about Christ, about sin, and there should be a discomfort in that. If you can go and sit and listen and listen and listen and feel comfortable, something's wrong—either with you or the messenger.
And if you're a Christian, there should be a level of discomfort. If you're a Christian and the man from the front is teaching the Word, there should be a level of discomfort. There should be challenges as the Holy Spirit applies God's Word to your heart. I should be uncomfortable.
Those are some of the things, it seems to me, as we compare and contrast. We look at what a church is and what a church isn't. There is a business side to it, there's a building side, but that's not the primary issue. It's a necessary issue, it's not the primary issue. Primary issue is people—causing them to grow, stimulating them to love one another and care for one another. That's the issue.
The Response to Peter's First Sermon
Now the text. Acts chapter 2, if you have your Bible, then turn to it. It would be terrific. If not, we'll get you up to speed very quickly on it. Acts chapter 2—if you remember, beginning in verse 37, Peter had delivered a message, and it was His first sermon, and people were responding. People were moving from all over. They were responding to the message. They said, "What do we do?" And He said, "Repent." And that day, 3,000.
Here's what it says, verse 41: "So when those who had received the word were baptized, there were added that day about 3,000 souls." Peter preaches this message, and 3,000 people respond. I'll tell you, it's got nothing to do with a lesson, but what's interesting to me is somewhere in that group, there was an usher in the back going, "One, two, three, four, five, six." Even then we kept track. About 3,000. We didn't nail it right on the head, but pretty close to 3,000 people respond.
Four Characteristics of the Early Church
Let me run all the way through this, and then come back. Verse 42 becomes the thrust of what we're going to look at: "They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, and to fellowship, and breaking of bread, and prayer. And everyone kept feeling a sense of awe. Many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those that had believed were together, and had all things in common."
They had all things in common. I want you to see that phrase. These people had nothing in common, the way we think of it. They were from many different races. They were pilgrims who were in Jerusalem. They didn't, for a lot of them, speak the same language. They were from different social economic backgrounds. Everything was different. They had everything in common, because they had one thing in common—the person of Christ. And once they had Christ in common, everything was in common with them.
Unity Through Christ
It's the same experience you've had. A fellow was telling me a couple of weeks ago that He had to go to this industry convention of His. And away He went. Didn't want to go. Hated it. Complained the whole way. Got there. Sat down. Lousy attitude. Didn't want to go. "Why do I want to be there? Nothing but a bunch of slugs. All they're going to do is play that ice game, shoot, pull, and drink all day long. What do I do in here?" He sits down next to a fellow, and in a matter of minutes, He senses there's something different. And in a couple minutes after that, He finds out this man's a Christian. And immediately, their hearts are linked together. Different parts of the country. Same industry. But what linked them wasn't the industry. Same Savior. Same Lord. And now they're communicating at this level.
Look how it manifests itself. Because, again, this becomes important. And I think it would be wrong to make this the model for the church. We can draw some principles out of this. This isn't the model. There's principles here, but not the model. The church is in transition. These pilgrims are in Jerusalem. All of a sudden, they're staying longer than they'd like.
Practical Love in Action
And others began selling their property and possessions and sharing with them all as somebody has needs. They didn't all put everything together. They didn't sell everything. But as a need arose, somebody would meet that need. And day by day, they were with one mind in the temple, breaking bread from house to house, taking meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God. And a couple of key phrases: Having favor with all the people.
The world looked at him and said, those guys are different. Look how they love one another. Look how they care for one another. There's something different about these people. The way they live is different. Not the way they cut their hair or dress, but the way they live is different. And the people looked and saw this, and daily the Lord was adding to their numbers. Day by day by day.
Again, it's wrong to make this a model, I think. I mean, we could extract from this, and we do it frequently, some idea of communism or communal living. That's not what's going on here. Do you see that? Communism says this: what's yours is mine, and I'll take it. Christianity says: what's mine is yours, and I'll share. Now, it may look the same, but it's totally different in terms of its motivation. And these people were reaching out to one another and meeting needs.
There are certain needs, and I'm learning this, that can only be met by cash. There are people, especially in the economic climate we're in today, who through no fault of their own, through a change in their industry, or a new marketplace, or a new competitor, are just flat up against it, and they're in real trouble. And they desperately need your prayers, and they do need your help, and they do need some suggestions, and yes, they may need some motivation to move into a new industry or to retool, but in the interim what they need is cash. And the church, in this case, was there to meet the need.
Four Principles from the Early Church
That's not the primary focus. We want to spend our focus on verse 42, because that becomes the basis. Again, not the model, but four principles, four activities, that these men and women are involved in, that I would suggest to you, should be present in every church.
Number one, they devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching. For you and I today, it would be devoting ourselves to the study of God's Word, to the Scripture. First and foremost, if you landed into this city, didn't know anybody, had to go to a church and try to figure out which one you're going to join, you look around and you calculate. What should you use as a barometer? Well, here's at least four things, and we're going to give you seven ultimately. Number one, the guy at the front should be teaching from this word right here, the Scripture.
The Essential Need for Scripture
You cannot grow as a Christian without knowledge. You have to know what the book says. It's essential. You have to have an understanding of what's in here. And you see that not only in this very early church, but you see it all through the epistles, as Paul, Peter, and James call us to study the Word, to let the Word be a mirror. I must have this. This is what tells me how to live.
You know if you've been here for any length of time, I love the bookstores. I love to go into the bookstore. The problem with the bookstores for me is, all the sections I like are shrinking, and the ones I don't care about are growing. Biographies shrink. History shrinks. Codependency and recovery can't get all the books on the shelf. Gay and lesbian rights all over.
I love biographies. I was listening to an interview with one of the leading biographers in the country the other day, and he was saying the key to writing a good biography is to capture the mind of the person. Anybody can go and get an encyclopedia, do a little research, and write a bunch of facts, but what made the person tick? How did they think? Why did they do what they did? What was their motivation? And when you have the mind, now it begins to fit together, and you have the essence of the person. You know what they're going to do. They're not only predictable, they're reliable. They're steady.
The Bible: The Ultimate How-To Book
The how-to section of the bookstore expands and expands and expands. Two things. Right here in my hand is the best how-to book ever written. How do you get along with a spouse? Here it is. How do you get along with a spouse that doesn't meet your needs? Kind of redundant from the first question, but how do you get along with a spouse that doesn't meet your needs? Right here. What do I do? How do I raise my kids? Right here. How do I handle my employees? Right here. What's my relationship with my employer? Right here.
How about sex? Certainly sex isn't in there. Beginning to end. How about money? Filled with tips on money. If you, in the early 80s, would have followed the principles in this book, you would be cash-rich today. You would not be experiencing what we've identified as asset erosion. You'd have it in the wheelhouse right here. Here's the answer.
Not only is it the greatest how-to book ever written, it allows me to begin to wrestle with the mind of God. Because the mind of God pours out on these pages. His infinite mind obviously isn't even comprehended here. It's infinite. But my finite mind can begin to understand some portion of His infinite mind because He in His grace and mercy and love has seen fit to write it down so I can read it. That's why this book is important. In a sense, it's God's autobiography. He wrote it. It's true. It's real.
I need to be in a church environment, first and foremost, where the person up front is teaching God's Word.
The Importance of True Fellowship
Secondly, they were not only in the Apostles' teaching, they were into fellowship. That's a little tougher. Fellowship is one of those words, like church, that probably needs some definition. Fellowship, if I say fellowship, if you're around a church you understand what fellowship is. If you're not, the word doesn't even mean anything to you because it's a form we don't use much.
Fellowship is not synonymous with cookies and coffee and cake and all the fattening things. Fellowship means literally to hold together, to share in common. Every once in a while I'll be out after one of the studies and I'll hear a guy leave, or I'll hear someone talk to somebody who's there for the first time, or I hear somebody trying to pitch somebody to join us. And they'll always talk about, it's great fellowship. Probably not.
not a lot of fellowship went on here this morning. There tends to be fellowship afterwards. If you hang around, you'll see different people at tables around. We come in and here's what we do. We say, "Hey, how you doing?" "Good. You?" "Good. What do you think? Rain last night where you were?" "Poured like cats and dogs. Rain where you were?" "Yeah. Ever seen rain like that?" "No. Your roof leak?" "Yeah. Mine too."
I don't know why they put flat little roofs on houses in Arizona. Don't understand that. "Hey, what do you think about Barkley? What a jerk, huh?" "He's not a jerk. Well, maybe he is. What do you think? He's going to help the Suns or hurt the Suns?" "How about him? Have you been on vacation yet?" "No. You going on vacation?" "Yeah. How about the kids? How are the kids?" "Great. Your kids?" "Good. Fine." Away we go and we say, "Man, we really had fellowship."
What is that? That's simply shooting the bull is what we always called it. That's not fellowship. Fellowship is down at this gut level. Now, having bashed that, I have to have that surface level. I got to get to know you to begin to get to the gut level. So there's value in that conversation.
The Danger of Instant Deep Fellowship
How would you like it if you just walked in for the first time and you said, "Hi." He said, "Hi. How you doing?" "How am I doing? Let me tell you this: I'm married to this wench. Oh, what a load. What a load this gal is. And I'll tell you, the only thing worse than her are these kids. They're driving me crazy. I can't wait to go on vacation. The problem with vacation is we're all going to be together all day. This is going to be terrible. And then when I get back, I still got the same boss." Well, I don't want that either.
Fellowship Takes Time and Limits Numbers
Two things about fellowship, I think. Number one, it takes time. It takes time with a person. I have a friend who's a part of a small group. They've met for four and a half years. For four and a half years, they have dined together at least every other week. They've camped together, vacations together, all this stuff. He made the statement the other day, "I think we're just beginning to open up to one another." Four and a half years. Four and a half years to really get into somebody. This idea of fellowship takes time.
There's another thing: you can't have it with many people. Because of the time, you begin to sense the demands. I can't have fellowship with a hundred people or fifty people. There's different degrees of this thing called fellowship. You understand that. I'm in fellowship, again, in a broad sense with many of you, but it shrinks when we begin to really define it gut to gut, heart to heart, mind to mind. Takes time to develop those kind of relationships where you begin to share.
You have to be together. You have to talk. You have to be able to hang out. You have to be able to eat lunch together, breakfast together, have coffee together, with no agenda. Just so you can start to understand how each other thinks. Begin to meet the other's needs.
The Breaking of Bread
These 3,000 new believers, along with the Apostles, get together and they focus on teaching. They focus on fellowship and they focus on the breaking of bread. That phrase "breaking of bread" is used in the scripture in two ways. It describes just eating—flat getting together and slopping down the food. But that's not the context here. It speaks to the Lord's Supper. It speaks to something far more intimate than just eating together.
It's the celebration that the Lord Jesus instituted Himself the night before He died. Remember that with the disciples in the room? He took the bread and He broke it. And He told us that that symbolized His body on the cross. That that broken bread wasn't just bread, but it was a bread that pointed to the person of Christ in His broken body. And He said, "Whenever you're together, do this in remembrance of Me."
And then He took the cup. It's the cup that was wine. And for most of us today, it's grape juice. He said, "This cup represents the pouring out of My blood for the forgiveness of sin. And when you're together, do that in remembrance of Me." These guys were together, not just studying and not just in fellowship, but they were involved in the Lord's Supper.
The Intimacy of Communion
One of the most intimate acts we can be involved in, at the same time, one of those things we have a tendency to just take for granted. There's an easy read. It's called "Shadow of the Almighty." And it's the diary of Jim Elliot. Jim Elliot was killed by the Indians in South America, as I remember, in about 1956. And Elisabeth, his wife, in 1958 gathered—and he was a prolific writer. Again, one of those arts that's lost today with the telephone. Writing all sorts of diaries and notes and letters back and forth. And she took all of these letters to her and these diaries and put them together.
What survives is a remarkable book called "Shadow of the Almighty." It's a diary of this man that begins about the time he's ready to go to college and ends before his 30th birthday as he's slaughtered by these Indians. The insights that this guy has at age 16, 17, 18 are remarkable. But now he's isolated. He's away from home. He's in South America. He doesn't know many people.
He said, "The highlight of my week—I'm so lonely—but the highlight of my week is the Lord's Supper. When I can be in a place where we break bread and share the cup and intimately, in a way that we can't at any other time, recall what He did for me. And my loneliness fades away as I sense His very presence." That's what the Lord's Supper is.
The Frequency of Communion
It's my conviction that the church should participate in communion every time it gathers. Now, I know most don't for a lot of reasons, but I think they should. You know the downside to doing it every week? It becomes routine. It becomes routine. One of the most intimate acts, and you get a guy like Jim Elliot, who senses and understands what's going on, and the sacredness of the moment, the importance of the moment.
These guys were together in fellowship, in teaching. There's a level of excitement with these 3,000 souls.
In different houses, but the most sacred of the moments is when they stop to commemorate, to remember, to contemplate, to reflect on the death of Christ and His resurrection. It should be present in the church that you attend.
And then lastly, prayer, teaching, fellowship, breaking of the bread, and prayer. Open, honest communication with God. That's what prayer is. Pouring out my heart to God.
A Lesson from Jim Elliot on Prayer
Elliot, in the same book, gives what I think is a great tip, although he doesn't write it as a tip, but when I read it, I took it that way. He writes of leaving his parents, and you can imagine this. In 1952, the son that they love is shipping off to South America. They haven't got a clue where, what, when, how. He needed $347, and they had no idea where they were going to get the money.
They began to pray, and there were a few people in churches that knew what was going on. This sounds so corny. Three days later, in the mail comes, in five separate checks, $300 to $47. God working in a marvelous way in this guy's life, and these parents got to know that this is of God. They know what a son they have, and yet the sorrow as he walks away, thinking maybe they'll never see Him again, which indeed happened.
In the first letter he writes home, he says, Mom and Dad, I remember your tears. I think about you all the time, and every time I think about you, I pray for you. Imagine that. That was the tip for me.
Prayer as a Way of Life
How many times in the course of a day do you think of your spouse? Imagine if every time you thought of Him or thought of her in the course of a day, you prayed for them. Imagine how many times in the course of a day you think of those little munchkins, or those big munchkins, or those rebellious munchkins. Imagine if every time you thought of them, it drove you to pray to God for their safety, for their salvation, for their growth.
How many times in the course of a day do you think of George Bush? Imagine if it drove you to pray for Him. How many times in the course of a day do you think of that person that you hate? That ex-spouse, that employer, that sibling, that parent, that one who abused you. How many times in the course of a day does that pop into your mind? I keep hearing from all these abused people. I can't get it out of my mind. How about if you prayed for them every time it came into your mind? Do you think that makes a difference? The answer is obviously yes.
That's prayer. It's not just a formal time. That's what they had, somebody in the front gathering around to pray. But it's time where from their very inner soul they're crying out to God for those real needs in their life, for their spouses and their kids and their relationships and their needs, and thanking Him for the way He's met them and given them.
Again, wrong to make this a model, I think, totally appropriate to grab those four principles out of there.
Seven Marks of a Biblical Church
Let me give you seven marks of a biblical church. If you're out looking for a church or you want to evaluate yours, seven things that I think you ought to look to and that will help you get a barometer on it.
Number one, primarily, I put it at the top just because it tends to be the world in which we don't live, the church should be believers gathered together for worship. Many of the churches around are in this massive quest to bring in non-Christians to church. That's not what church is. Church, by definition, is the body of believers coming together. Evangelism is very important. But that's not what Sunday worship is. It's not evangelism. It's the believers together worshiping. It's the believers coming together.
Understanding True Worship
What's worship? I found this great definition from William Temple. To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination with the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God. That's what worship is.
Rather than a form, what's it to be? It's to be an opening of me to God, first and foremost to His holiness. Let me expand that just a bit. To His character. To His attributes. I begin real worship when I begin to think of who God is.
Worship doesn't start with me. You and I live in a narcissistic society that keeps saying, look within yourself, look within yourself. This guy Charles Gibbons was on with Larry King last night with financial strategies. And the basic message was, you can't rely on anybody. You've got to rely on yourself. We've got to teach our kids and ourselves to be more independent. And all of worship begins by understanding, I'm not independent. I'm totally dependent upon Him for His holiness and His character. To feed my mind with His truth. To begin to comprehend His beauty. To sense His love.
We talk about the love of God and we don't really slam it. We leave it open and nebulous. The love of God, primarily from where we're sitting today, we see in the crucified Christ. For God so loved His world that He sent His only begotten Son that whoever would believe in Him wouldn't perish but have eternal life. This is the demonstration of God's love that His Son, while we were yet sinners, while we were ungodly, while we were enemies, died for us on the cross. That's love.
Form Versus Heart in Worship
Worship is not necessarily a form. In fact, form can become a block. We walked out of church one day and I remember the guy next to me was hot. He was angry. And I'm thinking, gee, that guy's really never said anything we could disagree with. What is this guy so upset about? So finally I heard Him say to his wife, do you realize that he didn't pray the Lord's Prayer this morning? And all I could think of is, gosh, I pray he never prays it again if it's become that important to Him.
Worship isn't form. It's getting to know God and understand Him.
The Second Mark: Encouraging and Equipping Believers
Secondly, to encourage and equip believers. That should be going on in the body. Took me a long time to see this one, but let me hopefully help you here. I am always in this loop at both ends, encouraging and equipping.
The Nature of Encouragement and Mentoring
By that I mean this. There are always people that I should be encouraging and equipping, and I should always be in the process of being encouraged and equipped by somebody else. It's the same thing with this thing we call mentoring. I should always have protégés. I should always be a protégé. Said the other way, I should always have mentors and I should always be a mentor. That's what should be going on in the church.
There should be a way of moving sincere people into maturity and growth, putting them to work, either within the church proper or in parachurch organizations, other organizations, but challenge them to use their gifts. Thirdly, we don't need to speak at depth to this, the teaching of sound doctrine. Fourthly, there should be fellowship. Those two we've talked about. We don't need to talk about them further.
Three Additional Essential Elements
Three more. Fifth, I think you should see what Christ has instituted as the two sacraments. That word could be a struggle for many. Ordinance, either of those. The Lord's Supper and baptism. Number six, I'm going to come back to. Number seven is an organizational structure. You have to have some structure. Paul in 1 Timothy 3 lays out the qualifications for deacons and elders and all of those issues. The reason he lays out those qualifications, the implication is clear. You'll have structure. You need some organization.
The Essential Matter of Public Discipline
Number six is the one you might quarrel with. And in a way, it seems to me it's essential. It's public discipline. I think you want a church where they're dealing with sin openly and publicly. Matthew 18 deals with it.
You've been in this situation before, I'm sure. You're in a room with a bunch of Christians and somebody says, "Ah, Fred, Fred, why don't you pray?" And Fred will stand up, hitch his pants as though he's ready to press 300 pounds. And then Fred will say something like this. "Father, you tell us that wherever two or more of us are gathered, you're there also. So Father, now we open our hearts to you in prayer."
Did you ever stop and think about that? Does that therefore mean when I'm by myself, He's not there? See, what happens to Fred and the reason that Fred ultimately, when you put it under the microscope, is foolish, is Fred's taken a verse out of context. Context is everything as we begin to interpret. That is not a prayer verse. Wherever two or more of you are gathered, you pray and God's there. No, what's happened is, Fred is at the end of Matthew 18 where they're speaking about sin and discipline.
Understanding Matthew 18 Discipline Process
Matthew 18 says this is the way this baby's supposed to happen. Let's say we've got Bob. Bob's in our church. Bob's involved in adultery. We go to Bob. I go to Bob. I find out about it. I say, "Bob, here's the facts. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. True?" Absolutely true. "Bob, you need to stop. You're involved in sin. You need to stop." He says, "Hey, stick it in your ear."
I then go and get another brother and we go to Bob and we say, "Bob, you're involved in sin. Are these the facts? Are you sleeping with this gal?" "Yeah." "You're in sin. You need to stop." And Bob says, "Hey, the two of you stick it in your ear."
Now, where the two of you are there and you agree, you've made that judgment, what should happen ideally is I should go to Bob's church. And I say, "Pastor, you've got Bob in your church and Bob's involved in this sin." And obviously after that's confirmed, you go to Bob. In the course of a Sunday morning, I think it's polite to send him a letter ahead of time to tell him it's going to happen and say, "We've got over here Bob Swartz. Bob's been coming to our church for quite some time. Bob's involved in adultery and you and the church need to know it. You need to know it for this reason so that you'll have nothing to do with him. He's not welcome in this church. He's not welcome in your Bible study. He's not welcome at the communion table. He's not welcome at our social." That's what should happen. That's what 1 Corinthians 5 is all about.
The Necessity and Love of Church Discipline
And all of a sudden, everybody's skin is crawling now. But let me make it clear for you. The guy saying Bob's in sin is still a sinner. The difference is, he's repentant. This guy's unrepentant. The loving thing to do is to ostracize. And Scripture says, if he's really a believer, that will drive him to fellowship and repentance. If not, good riddance. The loving thing to do is to isolate him.
Let me tell you something far greater than that. You can't be in a church where open sin is tolerated. I've seen them. Everybody knows that two or three members of the leadership are involved in open, blatant sin and the church will die because of it.
How does God feel about public sin? Look at Acts 5 with Ananias and Sapphira. Bam! Dead they go. There's the picture.
Finding the Right Church
If you're looking for a church, I would suggest to you that you look at a church that is in line with what I think are not my objectives, but what the biblical admonition for church is. It's going to come in many shapes and sizes. And I think a bit like a pair of jeans, you need to find one that fits you comfortably. But it's important that those elements of the apostles' teaching and fellowship and breaking of bread and prayer, I think of encouraging and equipping the idea that this is believers for worship and public discipline need to be present in your selection of a church.
For most of you, you need to stand pat where you are. You need to be salt and light in the midst of it. For others of you, you need to begin to search for a church. You've never been involved. You need to get involved. And others of you need to leave the church you're going to and go somewhere else.
There's hardly two weeks that goes by that someone says, "You're studying for eight weeks, and I've learned more in eight weeks than I've learned in eight years in my church." And I always say the same thing. Thank you very much. Find a new church. This is a supplement to your church diet. This isn't church, men and women. We're here to encourage, to help, maybe to round out, maybe to emphasize some of the doctrine.
Much of the application that you might not get on Sunday. But this isn't church. And you need to be a member of the local church. Strong, Bible-believing church.
Which one? That's up to you to decide. I say you apply those principles to it, and you'll find that there's some choices out there for you.
Moving Forward
I hope you have a good time, and I hope these five weeks, I hope a couple of things happen. Number one, I really hope in the bottom of my heart that you miss this Thursday morning. Golly, I miss that Thursday morning. And I hope that moves you to be back on September 10th.
And I hope when you come back, you understand that there's others in your sphere of influence who will fall in love with Thursday morning just like you have. And you'll use it to reach out to them. And we'll jam this baby to the rafters. We'll be back September 10th.
Closing Prayer
Let's pray, and we'll send you on your way.
Father, thank you for Your Word and for the fact that it's true. For many of us, this is a bit of a difficult lesson. It brings us face-to-face with our lives individually, and forces us to come to grips with the need for other believers.
For those men and women, Father, that are here that are in good churches, we pray for them. We pray for pastors and leaders and elders, those that are here that are in positions of leadership. Father, we pray that You use them. God, we pray for the local church. Father, we pray that You'd strengthen it. Use it as an organism to touch the community.
For those that are in church situations that they just sense are wrong, Father, give them the boldness to find where You'd have them, to discover where they need to be, to be in a position of good, sound teaching where they're encouraged and fed. And Lord, for those men and women who are here who have resisted, for whatever reason, the local church, would You bring them to a church this week? Let them start the process. And it may take time, and they may need to try on different pairs. Father, let them find that church environment that just fits for them.
Father, we always work on the assumption that there's men and women here who they don't need a church, they need You. Father, I pray that today would be the day that You would touch their hearts and bring them to You in repentance and faith. And Father, we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.