Love the Local Church

Introduction

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