Why be a Part of a Local Church?

Often times Christianity is pictured as simply a personal relationship with Jesus. Now while Christianity most definitely includes a personal relationship with Jesus, it is not only a personal relationship with Jesus. Ephesians 2 shows us that we are not just saved from sin, we are saved into God’s kingdom. We are reconciled to God AND to God’s people. Christianity is NOT merely a personal relationship with Jesus.

Ephesians 2:14-16, 19-20

For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh, he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death.
So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.

Paul is showing us that one of the implications of being raised from death to life is we are now a part of God’s people.  “When we come to Christ, he folds us into a family—a family with actual flesh-and-blood, step-on-your-toes people.”(Dever, Mark. Why Should I Join A Church? Crossway, 2020.) When we become a child of God we become a part of God’s people. 

1 Peter 2:9-10

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

This is often called the family of God, the body of Christ, or the universal Church. The Universal Church is the body of Christ and should very much be a part of each individual Christian’s life. We see an expression of this at the end of Philippians. 

Philippians 4:22

All the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar’s household.

The word for GREET is more than just a “Hey how you doin’?”. It was a joy-filled, hospitable recognition. It signifies camaraderie, or unity as Ephesians says. It’s a way of saying “We are in this together.” What’s special about the universal Church is, it reminds us that we have brothers and sisters all around the world. And when our brothers and sisters are facing persecution we stand with them, support them, and pray for them because we are all the body of Christ. 

Many of the books of the New Testament were letters given to specific local churches so the context of those commands are often fleshed out in local churches, but the book of 1 Peter was written to Christians living as exiles dispersed abroad in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. So it wasn’t written to one specific local church like the book of Philippians was. And in chapter 4 Peter says…

1 Peter 4:9

Be hospitable to one another without complaining.

So you have the Christians who are dispersed and fleeing persecution. Many of them are fleeing their homes and Peter tells them to be hospitable to each other. “Welcome these fleeing refugees into your home because they are your brothers and sisters in Christ. Even though you don’t know them, welcome them.”  That is part of the beauty of the universal Church. It reminds us that no matter where we are or what we are facing we have brothers and sisters in Christ all around the world.

I believe that the more we see the beauty of the universal Church, the more we will get a passion for missions because our focus grows from just what God is doing in our location and we see what God is doing around the world and how we can co-labor with God in other locations like we will see in Acts and like we see throughout the New Testament. 

Now the very first church was the church at Jerusalem. We see its beginnings in Acts 2. Because there was only the church in Jerusalem there was no difference between local and universal. In Acts 2 Peter stands up and preaches at the feast of Pentecost. 

Acts 2:41

So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added to them.

In Acts 1 there were about 120 people. In Acts 2 this church grows by 3,000. Then a few verses later we see this early church begins taking shape. 

Acts 2:42-47

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

As this new church is beginning to take shape people are becoming a part of it after they are saved. In Acts 8 Philip leads an Ethiopian official to Christ and now we have the gospel going to Africa. Then Gentiles start getting saved. Then persecution comes and Christians are being scattered, and in Acts 11 we see the church at Antioch get started as a result. So then the church at Jerusalem sends Barnabas to Antioch and he stays there for over a year and large numbers of people are saved and added to that local church in Antioch. 

So we see the church at Jerusalem is helping the church at Antioch because they recognized they were all THE Church. Then of course Paul and Barnabas are sent out by the church and they go on their missionary journeys and begin planting more local churches. As more local churches are getting started what we begin to see happening is the functional expression of the Universal Church is fleshed out in local churches. Check out 1 Corinthians 12.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13

For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also is Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink.

Because Paul is tying being a part of the body back to being baptized in the Spirit, which happens at salvation, we know he is NOT talking about the local church, but the universal Church. Then in verse 27, he brings this home to the local church at Corinth. The Christian Standard translates verse 27…

1 Corinthians 12:27

Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.

But a more literal translation says…

1 Corinthians 12:27

Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it. (NASB)

In Greek, there is no “the” in verse 27. So he is no longer THE CHURCH, he is talking about a church. That’s why he says, YOU CHURCH AT CORINTH are Christ’s body. He takes what is true of the big C church and applies it to the Corinthians. So the unity, the diversity, the love, and camaraderie of the universal Church are meant to be, not solely, but largely expressed through the local church. We also got a picture of this back in 1 Corinthians 10. 

1 Corinthians 10:14-17

So then, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. I am speaking as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I am saying. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, since all of us share the one bread.

We know this body is referring to the local church because they are taking communion together. But this also helps us understand why we don’t limit communion to only our church members. All believers are part of his body. The local church is meant to be the functional expression of the Universal Church.

Mark Dever said that “Membership in a local church is not an antiquated, outdated, unnecessary add-on to true membership in the universal church; membership in a local church is intended to be a testimony to our membership in the universal church.” (Dever, Mark. Why Should I Join A Church? Crossway, 2020.)

So while people often will pit the universal Church against the local church, the Bible doesn’t. In fact, I would argue, that the more we stand in awe at what God is doing in the big C Church, the more zealous we will be for our local church. Membership in the universal Church cannot remain an abstract idea or concept. When it is real, it shows up in real ways with real flesh-and-blood people in your life - the local church. Let me give you my working definition of the local church.

"The local church is a group of baptized believers who gather as representatives of God’s kingdom on earth to declare his glory through proclaiming the Word, observing the ordinances, prioritizing prayer, seeking consistent spiritual fellowship for mutual accountability and encouragement as we display God’s love and holiness, using the gifts of the Spirit to support each other and evangelize the lost locally and globally."

Becoming a member of a local church is saying in an official capacity: “I want to be a part of this.”

Jonathan Leeman said “Church membership is how we formally recognize and commit to one another as believers. It is a church’s affirmation and oversight of a Christian’s profession of faith and discipleship, combined with the Christian’s submission to the church and its oversight.” (Hansen, Collin, and Jonathan Leeman. Rediscover Church: Why The Body of Christ Is Essential. Crossway, 2021.) Consider Hebrews 10.

Hebrews 10:23-25

Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

Church membership is you saying “I am willing to submit to this particular body of believers. I am inviting them into my life and asking them to keep me accountable for following Jesus.”  It’s also you saying “I am willing to be a part of the other members’ lives so that I can help encourage them as they follow Jesus.” Church membership is how we all take responsibility for each other’s Christian walk. 

This is why gathering together is so important. 

• It allows us to sit under the preaching of the Word together. 
• It allows us to praise God together. 
• It allows us to pray together. 
• And it also allows us to have the opportunity for our lives to intersect.

Part of being the church is gathering. The Greek word means assembly. In common use, it means a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly. It makes sense Jesus would use this word considering we are citizens of heaven. 

In 1 Corinthians 11:18, Paul is offering a rebuke to the church at Corinth over their divisions when they gather but notice how he phrases it..when you come together as a church there are divisions among you. Physically gathering together is intrinsic to being a local church. Gathering allows us to encourage one another. Also notice Paul's instructions to Timothy.

1 Timothy 3:15

But if I should be delayed, I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

Paul was telling Timothy that there is a certain way the local church is to conduct itself as a part of the larger universal Church. The reason God gives the local church elders is to proclaim the Word, model the Word, and equip the saints to follow the Word. BTW that is why a local church needs more than one elder, so they have multiple examples to follow. 

Consider all the commands given to Christians in the New Testament that are given in the context of a local church. Here are just a few

• Be of the same mind…Romans 12:6
• Be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving…Ephesians 4:32
• Seek good…1 Thessalonians 5:15
• Love…John 15:12
• Serve…Galatians 5:13
• Be subject…Ephesians 5:21
• Bear the burdens of…Galatians 6:2
• Comfort…1Thessalonians 4:18

Becoming a member of a local church is a way to officially say we are going to help each other follow Jesus because we can’t obey these commands by ourselves. You can’t serve one another by yourself. When people ask if membership is in the Bible, oftentimes they have the idea of something like Costco membership in mind. And that is clearly not in Scripture. But the idea of God separating a group of people for his glory is all over the entire Bible. God has always marked off his people so that they can display his glory. 

2 Corinthians 6:14-18

Do not be yoked together with those who do not believe. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? And what agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God said:

I will dwell and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord; do not touch any unclean thing, and I will welcome you. And I will be a Father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.

Paul calls us the “temple of the living God” and calls us to be separate from the world so that we can provide a witness to the world. We also see this in 1 Peter.

1 Peter 2:9-10

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

God has set us apart for him and the unique way we live as a new people proclaims the glory of God. God wants us to be distinct so that we can offer a compelling witness to the world. We can also observe some things in the early church that help inform why we do membership as we do it here. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 5:2 and Matthew 18:15-17, both Paul and Jesus talk about removing someone from fellowship. You can’t really remove a person who wasn’t officially a part, to begin with. 

In Acts 2 the early church knew how many people were being added to them. In Acts 6 we see that certain widows were not getting the help or care that they needed from their local church

Acts 6:1

In those days, as the disciples were increasing in number, there arose a complaint by the Hellenistic Jews against the Hebraic Jews that their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution.

So here we can see that the church was growing and they knew who their widows were and that some of them were not getting the care they needed. In 1 Timothy 5:3-16, we are given a list of criteria for what widows should receive help. Now obviously, they didn’t have some type of church administration software, but they did have some type of administration that allowed them to properly care for their members and identify when that care wasn’t happening. Church membership is an assumed reality throughout the New Testament Epistles, even though the language is different. 

Now it’s worth bringing up that all of what we have looked at so far implies that we are regularly involved in each other’s lives. I am all for small groups, but what we see throughout the New Testament goes beyond snacks and a 30-minute Bible study. One of the best ways to really know the people in your church is to have them at your dining room table. Sit and talk. Regularly be involved in the lives of the people in your church. And this is vital as we look at another reason church membership is important. 

Church membership is vitally important because Christ has given the local church authority to confront sin in that local church. Now I understand that church discipline sounds awkward and harsh, but it’s really a gift of grace and an act of love. Church discipline starts with private correction. By giving the church the authority to confront sin, Jesus expects his people to be committed to each other and hold each other accountable in the local church. So in this sense, church discipline should be happening quite regularly. 

Matthew 18:15-17

“If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he won’t listen, take one or two others with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. If he doesn’t pay attention to them, tell the church. If he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like a Gentile and a tax collector to you.

I had a friend a year or two ago who called me out on how my pride was keeping me from being authentic in some areas of my life. 

That is the church correcting my sin. Now, given a period of time, if a person who is confronted doesn’t repent and work at changing by the grace of God, Jesus gives us the steps to follow. Take it to a few more witnesses. The reason being is the sin needs to be verifiable. …so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. But if a person is obstinate in their sin, you take it to the church. If that doesn’t work, we let him be like a Gentile or tax collector, basically an unbeliever. 

If we have taken all these steps and a person still refuses to let go of their sin, we have to break fellowship. What does that mean? It means that their church can no longer publicly affirm their profession of faith. It means fellowship is limited to calls for repentance. It’s not about punishment or retribution, it’s about pushing them towards repentance. It is also about protecting the witness of a church. 

Grace frees us from sin. God has saved us and set us apart from the world so that we can demonstrate the beauty of living for God. Unrepentant sin is the opposite of grace and hinders that witness. 

Check out 1 Corinthians 5. 

1 Corinthians 5

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among the Gentiles—a man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 

So at this point, this sin is an established fact in the church and it has not been dealt with. Paul goes on…

And you are arrogant! Shouldn’t you be filled with grief and remove from your congregation the one who did this? Even though I am absent in the body, I am present in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who has been doing such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Now, at first, this seems intense. But the way Paul ends that last sentence tells us that the purpose of this is actually for the good of this individual. The church can no longer publicly affirm this person’s salvation and hopefully, that will serve as a wake-up call. This shows us that discipline and love are not at odds with one another, but that discipline flows from love. Remember...

Hebrews 12:6a

for the Lord disciplines the one he loves…

Now to be sure, what God calls love does not jive with our culture. Our culture says love is equal to an acceptance of nearly every kind of self-expression. But God says love doesn’t delight in evil but rejoices in the truth.

Let’s continue with 1 Corinthians 5:6…

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new unleavened batch, as indeed you are. 

Basically, clean out the sin so that you can live in accordance with whom Christ has made you - a holy people!

For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us observe the feast, not with old leaven or with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Don't partake in communion with someone living in open and unrepentant sin.

I wrote to you in a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. I did not mean the immoral people of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters; otherwise you would have to leave the world. But actually, I wrote you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister and is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or verbally abusive, a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person. For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? Don’t you judge those who are inside? God judges outsiders. Remove the evil person from among you.

Paul is also showing us that church discipline protects the functional purity and holiness of the church. Christ has made us a new and holy people, but if we allow sin to go unchecked our lives don’t reflect that spiritual reality and we lose our witness as a new people. Now given the intense nature of the last step in church discipline, Scripture tells us the types of sin that allow for this. 

1 Corinthians 5:11

But actually, I wrote you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister and is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or verbally abusive, a drunkard or a swindler.

For example, we wouldn’t church discipline a husband for eating too much ice cream despite his wife’s gentle disapproval. But if a husband is verbally abusive towards his wife or abandons his wife, we should. God has not given the church the authority to judge outsiders, or unbelievers, for their sin. God himself does that. But he has given the local church the authority to confront sin within the local church. This is why church membership is so important. 

Church membership allows you to be a part of this safeguard against sin from shipwrecking your life. Church discipline is really an expression of love. Remember, sin destroys. Because I love my children I exercise my authority as their father and correct them and discipline them when they sin because I want what’s best for them. Church discipline done well ensures that our church is a safe place for confession and repentance, but not for unchecked wickedness. A church with a biblically correct and healthy view of church discipline becomes an environment that makes it easier for sins to be confessed and dealt with when they are “small” before they morph into something bigger. WHAT GRACE! 

And when there is an environment of regular confession and holding each other accountable in a spirit of love and grace, people are given the chance to make things right. When the first steps of church discipline are done well, the last steps are a rare occurrence. Church membership is how a church formally recognizes and commits to each other as believers. 

The local church really is a beautiful thing. There is so much that this message didn’t even cover. Books upon books have been written about the beauty of the local church. I read a great one this week called Rediscover Church.

I am also not naive. I know local churches often fall short of this vision. Even ours. A person might expect me to say everything I did this morning because I’m a pastor and I’m supposed to. The truth is I’m saying as a person who has experienced a lot of hurt in the church. I’m not issuing a blanket endorsement for all churches or condoning the misuse of power and authority that is far too common in churches. But I have also experienced the beauty of this local church. 

It was in a local church that I found an older mentor who had gone through similar circumstances and was able to walk with me through the pain I was enduring. He showed me for the first time in my life what it was like to relate to God as my Father. It was through a local church that I discovered an authentic community, friends whom I could lean on, friends who would listen. Friends whom I could be with and say nothing, or say anything and they were present with me. It was in a local church that I was given a safe space and support  as I went through grief and trauma counseling. The local church helped me unpack my pain and biblically equipped me to process and spiritually heal as I tried to move forward with my life. 

Spending time in God’s Word with godly friends every week fed my soul when I was often too tired or angry to feed myself. It was around fellow member's coffee tables and around mine, that I learned what real grace was. Sure it’s messy sometimes. I often say stupid things. Occasionally my church does too. Imperfectly growing with imperfect people is messy. And honestly, it’s not always what I want. But it is what I need. It’s what we all need. 

So here is my challenge: Show up at your local church. 

Remember that you are the body of Christ. You are essential and church is essential for you.