I love the local church and I want you to as well. Over the
past week the same theme keeps coming up and so I need to take a break from a
very heavy project to write about something that is very near and dear to my
heart. This topic is loving and suffering the local church for the glory of
Christ and y’alls (plural of your) sanctification.
Loving the church is not just a personal preference, it is a
mandate from Heaven and a blessing to your soul. Is the church perfect? No,
absolutely not, far from it, and God has a special tool designed into it to
make sure it is never perfect on this side of Heaven. That special tool is
called “conversion” which makes sure that just when you get your church on the
road to sanctification you meet a person who just met Jesus and has a thousand temptations
to work through with no experience. Is your ideal church full of 5-point sola saints
who have all of the right answers and orthopraxy that looks just like yours or
is your ideal church full of single moms, fatherless children, ex-drug addicts,
repentant homosexuals, former pagans, and enlightened scientists etc. etc. etc.
etc. etc. etc. who love Jesus in their own gifting, fall often, and need your
help and the help of the church to follow Christ and publish his peace to their
part of the world?
I intend to convince you to love the local church as well by
showing you that it is vital that you are strengthening the weak, gathering together
with Christ followers, growing with others, obeying the gospel, loving your congregation,
sharing in the sufferings of Christ, and believing in total depravity and
unconditional election.
Strengthen
the Weak
The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. ~ Ezekiel 34:4
God is not at all fond of the shepherd who fails to care for
his sheep. I include this here because a few years ago when it was incredibly
popular to claim that your church was online, on television, or in a para-church
ministry I noticed that most of the people who were in this rebellion
considered themselves to be super-spiritual and capable of shepherding the
flock better than any pastor. Despite the fact that their ordination was
self-imposed and not recognized by other men, it was apparent that pride was the
driving force behind many leaving the local church. So, if you think in any degree
that you are a shepherd, then I call you to the local church for this reason
first: Not every sheep is healthy or wise or necessarily even in the fold. God
designed it this way, both for a diversity in the local church, but so that the
shepherds would have a continuing ministry and could be proved to the rest of
the flock as true to be followed or a hireling to expel.
So, I call you to love the local church, especially if you
consider yourself spiritual, that you may seek out the weak sheep, the broken sheep,
the wandering sheep, and help them along the way. It’s not just a nice thing to
do, it is the difference between obedience and disobedience to God. If you read
the rest of Ezekiel 34 (as well as Zechariah 11) you’ll see that these shepherds
are not long for life or ministry.
Gather
Together
So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. ~ Ezekiel 34:5
In order to know and minister to the weak you must spend time
with them. This is ideally done in the local church setting. This is for their
sake, but more importantly for you in this verse, it is for your sake.
Separating yourself from a shepherd and a flock makes you a
target to every wolf, bear, eagle, and poacher who comes along. Do not console
yourself thinking that just because you’ve left a local shepherd that the Good
Shepherd may come looking for you (Luke 15:4), for that local shepherd may be
God’s man who he has been calling to you through.
It is not a few of the “my ministry is my church” men whom I
have observed run off into charismania or Sabellianism or Arianism…who knows
which temptation Satan has crouched at your door waiting to devour you, but
apart from the flock, you will be easy prey, no matter what your pride says
otherwise.
Grow
Together
My beloved pastor this morning spoke truth when he talked
about those who are not running the race well and look the same today as they
did twenty years ago. It was a tragic illustration but a true one. We have a
vagrant who visits our church occasionally, he is proud that he has visited
pretty much every church in our metropolitan area, but the man, though he has
much Bible knowledge, has no sanctification and no fruit keeping with
repentance. I did have a deep heart-to-heart with him the last time he visited,
probably a year ago, and encouraged him to join a church and grow there. I hope
he took my advice, because the local church is where you won’t necessarily
learn more than you already know, but where you will be held accountable to
bear fruit.
John Calvin agrees with me, “We have not come to the preaching
merely to learn what we do not know, but to be incited to do our duty.”
In this we are obeying the gospel to be a repentance changed
people who believe that God is working in and with broken people redeemed by
Christ. How can we visit our brothers in the hospital if we don’t know anyone
in the hospital? How can we meet one another’s needs if we don’t know each
other’s needs? One of the places we grow most readily is when we suffer with
our brothers and sisters and with our Saviour.
Share in
the Sufferings of Christ
He marveled because of their unbelief. ~ Mark 6:6
If you want an example of someone who was let down by men and
who marveled at their lack of understanding, you need look no farther than our
Saviour. He did not abandon those whom failed and betrayed him so often, he did
not leave them to go find other, less hard-hearted or stubborn people, he bore
their burden and gave them his, and called them his friends.
Read the story of Moses, a man who originally did not want to
lead Israel out of Egypt for their stubbornness, but whom by the end of his
life was pleading for them, loving them, and guiding them to a land of promise
that he himself could not enjoy. How did Moses go from practically despising
the people of Israel to counting them his brothers? He suffered with them in
the wilderness and rejoiced with them in the oasis.
How will you ever grow to love a congregation with whom you
have not suffered with? More importantly, how will you endure the sufferings of
Christ which bring forth a fruit of righteousness, fellowship, character, and
hope, if you flee from every suffering?
Love Your
Congregation
And if you have in your heart to flee, then from every church
you will flee.
You would never be caught dead in the sexually deviant church
at Corinth. (1 Corinthians 5:1)
You would never grace the doors of those lazy preterists (resurrection-deniers)
in Thessaly. (2 Thessalonians 2:2, 3:10)
You would scoff at those legalists in Galatia. (Galatians 3:1)
You would wonder at the saints who could worship in Ephesus
which was so overwrought with wolves. (Acts 20:29)
You would cringe at the comfort seekers in Dayton.
You would sigh for the postmodernists in Seattle.
You would cry over the charismania in Atlanta.
Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
Believe
in Total Depravity and Unconditional Election
What’s worse is that many of these church abandoners claim to
be reformed in their understanding of mankind and grace. But at the first sign
of depravity they are out the door. Beloved, do you believe that your heart is
naturally inclined towards sin, can you sing that great hymn that says, “Prone
to wander, Lord I feel it”, can’t you recognize that even saints need seeking
and saving sometimes? Don’t you love the lost even when they are in a building with a steeple?
Has God sanctified you beyond the point where he needed to
unconditionally elect you, and now you are in a place to judge the election of
those you are called to have unity with? Is your denomination/community
failing? I could point you to JC Ryle (Anglican), or Charles Spurgeon (Particular
Baptist), or Al Mohler (Southern Baptist Convention) who nearly watched their traditions
fall apart around them, but they stayed, and the church has been immensely blessed
because of their faithfulness.
Stop pretending there can be a perfect church on earth or a
church that is full of people who deserve to be called. If there were a perfect church it would quickly be contaminated because of the members inviting their unsaved and recently saved friends. But you won’t find it, and not
only will you suffer the consequences of continually looking, but you’ll miss opportunities in which
God has called you to bless his beautiful local church.
Conclusion
I love the local church even though the local church is going
to hurt me, even though I’m going to hurt them, and together we’re going to
grow together in love and holiness and compassion as we seek to serve Christ
and spur one another towards good works.
Did I leave a church when I was younger when it was imploding?
Yes. Do I regret it? Yes. That is a discussion for another day, this article is part of my repentance, and my life in the local church from here to eternity
is my fruit. I love the local church, I’m committed to the local church, and I
will defend, with my words and my life, the local church. Afterall, it is Christ’s
body.
Let’s strengthen it, mend it, add to it, and live—as much as
is possible—in unity in it.
I remain committed to you and the local church,
Canyon
