Church Discipline - 3. What? (Membership)

Church is not just sort of an organization that the IRS recognizes. It's not just a building. It's not just the leaders of the church. But a church is a congregation of people that are either in the church, or then there's everybody else that's not in the church. There's a clear line. So it's different than, say, a couple times a month on Saturday nights, I post a study in my house. and a lot of other folks from the, young adults from the church come to that. There's people not from our church that come, and it is a very nebulous, ever-evolving, ever-changing group. It's been going on for a few years, and sometimes certain people come for a season, and then they sort of dwindle off, or people show up randomly, and that's totally fine and good for that. My point is, that's not what a church is like. A church is not just a nebulous group. boundaries and there's real God-given authority. And I think if we don't see it that way, well then church discipline is gonna be a lot more confusing. But I think if we understand membership that way, discipline will make a lot more sense. To put this another way, trying to understand discipline, church discipline apart from church membership, is kind of like trying to understand what it would mean to get fired from a job if there's no concept of getting hired for a job. It would be like trying to understand what denaturalization is if you have no concept of citizenship. Membership and discipline necessarily go together, just like the concept of inclusion and exclusion, the inside and an outside. Now, I think a great place to start for understanding church membership, there's a lot of places in the New Testament to go, but I want to start with the two places that Jesus himself actually mentions church in the Gospels. Now, I think what Jesus says in Matthew 16 and 18, that gets fleshed out in the epistles and Acts, but this is really the foundation. So, turn with me to your Bible to Matthew chapter 16, and we're gonna pick up in verse 13. It says that, now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." So in other words, Peter makes this true confession of who Jesus is. And Jesus affirms that, and he clarifies, you know, this wasn't revealed to you by man, this isn't because you are the smartest of all people, this is because God, my Father in heaven, has revealed it to you. And then, Jesus continues, verse 18, and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now, what is the rock? Is the rock Peter as an individual, or is the rock Peter as an example of all who confess the confession that Peter has just made, this confession of the truth about Christ. Now, I think as Matthew 18 is gonna make clear, it's gonna help us understand why it's the latter. Peter is not the sole person that receives the authority Jesus can talk about here, it's the church. But Peter here is an example of one who is confessing the truth about Christ, and the idea is that the church is being built on those who make that true confession. That's the rock on which the church is built, this confession of who Jesus is and those that confess it, like Peter. But then notice that Jesus continues. He says, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. So, Again, the you, if it's not Peter as the individual, this is those who make that confession, so he's giving to you, that is the church, keys. The keys of the kingdom of heaven. So, okay, what are the keys? Well, I would suggest the keys are a symbol of authority. Keys are what you use to either open or shut something. They are the authority to enter or come out or deny or grant access. Jesus calls these the keys of the kingdom of heaven. So he's saying that the church has some kind of authority concerning the kingdom of heaven, and I think specifically concerning who's in and who's out. The keys of the kingdom are given. And then he continues and he says, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now, many scholars think that this language of binding and loosing reflects a rabbinic phrase for when scribes would make a ruling concerning some application of the Mosaic Law. So maybe, imagine it's like a divorce situation, and you come to the scribes, and you're trying to figure out, well, am I free, or am I bound? What does the law require? And so the scribes would go to the law and then they would make some kind of ruling. So I think the language of binding and loosing is referring to this idea of making some sort of authoritative ruling. And also as you kind of put it together with the keys of the kingdom, I think the idea is that Jesus is giving his church the authority to make a ruling about who's confessing the truth about Christ. and who's not. In other words, as tied to the keys, it's who's welcomed into the Church and who's excluded from it, because the very rock on which the Church is to be built are those who are confessing the truth about Christ, like Peter. In other words, the idea here is that the church has been given authority to decide who the members are. Who's in and who's out. And I think secondly, related to that, that the church is given authority to decide what our statement of faith is. We're making a ruling concerning who's confessing the truth about Christ and who's not. So if someone is saying something in error, well, the church is to have authority to make some decision about that. Now, a key question here, so what is the nature of this authority? Clearly Jesus is giving authority to his church, but is it authority to determine who's in or out, or is it authority really to recognize? Do you see the difference? So the authority to determine what you would think in terms of, okay, well, the church gets to decide who's forgiven by God, who's not. The authority to recognize is the authority to make some sort of judgment or ruling about who's received forgiveness from God or who hasn't. And I think when you look into it, it's definitely the latter. It's an authority to recognize. Clearly, the church does not have the authority to determine the truth about Christ. It's not that Peter got to decide, well, this is who Jesus is. No, no, no. Peter just recognized what the Father revealed. And in the same way, we don't determine, well, who has forgiveness, who doesn't. We recognize who's confessed the truth about Christ, who's actually believing the gospel, and on the basis of the reality as it is in heaven, we are to recognize and make some sort of judgment or authoritative ruling on earth. In fact, just grammatically, if you look at the language in ESV where it says, I'll give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, that could kind of give you the idea that the church makes a decision and then heaven sort of follows suit. But you may notice, at least in my Bible, there's sort of a little footnote, that this can also be translated, and whatever you bind up the curtain, shall have been found in heaven. It's actually a perfect tense. So, I think that's really the better translation, that this is not, we decide what heaven is gonna do, it's, the reality in heaven is to correspond to the ruling the church. But the church is given that authority to actually make that ruling. And this is what the keys of the kingdom have to do with. The authority to recognize who's in and who's out. Now, any questions about this section here? It's about mission, and why would it be they're already down in heaven? You say, why would it say what? Right. Yeah, so I think the argument would be that church membership on earth is meant to correspond to the heavenly reality of it. This person, you know, actually, you know, a true believer in Christ or not. Does that make sense? So it's not that membership on earth determines whether someone is a believer or not, but it's meant to correspond. All right, well in the interest of time, so let's push ahead to Matthew 18. I think that'll maybe help clarify a couple things. So Matthew 18, picking up in verse 15, Jesus says, if your brother sins against you, Go and tell of his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Now, we're gonna look at this section in more detail when we think about, especially like, the process of church discipline and so on. But, for today I just want you to notice verse 15, This is talking about a brother. And a brother is someone who's within the covenant community, right? We in Christ, we're family, so we refer to one another as brothers and sisters. But notice what happens at the end in verse 17. He says, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. So there's a change or a shift in status for this person. Or instead of being a brother, now they're a Gentile tax collector. They're someone outside of the community of the church. So this is talking about a transition from someone inside the church to outside. And therefore, this is an exercise of the keys of the kingdom from Matthew 16. So earlier Jesus said, you have these keys. Now he's instructing us how they are to be used. That there's some sort of authoritative ruling taking place. Now, interestingly, in Matthew 16, I think the focus was on the confession. Is this person confessing the truth about Christ? But now we see here, it's also applied to the person's lifestyle or behavior. They're confessing the truth about Christ, but they're living in sin, and they're unwilling to repent of it. And Jesus is saying that that would be a basis for excluding them from covenant community, being removed from the Church. And if you're not totally convinced that this is about the keys, well, notice verse 18 in particular, where he again speaks of, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. So, it's again this This is the same idea of the authoritative judgment of the binding and loosing being declared by the church. Now, the key thing to notice here is actually verse 17. Who is it who actually exercises the authority of the keys? I think you can kind of misunderstand Matthew 16 as being, well, Peter. He gave to Peter as an individual. But I think this makes pretty clear who Jesus has in mind. It's the church. Peter's an example of a believer, but it's the church as a whole. It's not some group within the church, it's the church. And even more particularly, if you look at verse 20, notice how he stresses for where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I abundant. It's not how big the church is. is that it is a church gathered together. And Jesus is saying that he will be present with his people such that this authority that he's granted can be exercised by his people in rendering this kind of judgment. And then, I just want to jump ahead finally to Matthew chapter 28. which does not mention the word church, but it does include this idea of authority, and Jesus is precious, once again. So in Matthew 28, pick up in verse 18, it says, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." So here we see Jesus saying, I have all authority. And then on the basis of that authority, he sends out his disciples to make disciples. And once again, he promises that he will be with them. So that authority, as they go forth on this commission, is continuing to be mediated on through Jesus' presence with them. Now, this authority that Jesus gives the church to make disciples is clearly an authority to go and preach. But then, secondly, it's an authority to baptize. So, not only do they go forth and proclaim the truth about Christ, but then, again, thinking of the keys, this authoritative recognizing, well, who actually is a believer, well he tells them to baptize. So those who respond, those who show evidence that yes, they are confessing the truth about Christ and they are committed to following Christ, they're to be baptized. So baptism functions as this outward sign that declares who a disciple of Christ really is. Nobody baptizes themselves. It's not that you hear the gospel and then you decide, I'm going to call Christ, I'm going to go baptize myself. There's someone else that baptizes you. Because baptism is not something that we have the authority to do for ourselves. It is an ordinance of the Church. It's an exercise, really, of the keys. And you're baptized into the body of Christ, the Church. Just think about it this way, as members of a church. So after we've been baptized, and now here we are, covenanted together as a local church body, what do we do on an ongoing basis to symbolize our unity and our brotherhood in Christ, and to sort of demonstrate, yes, we're followers of Christ, in a visible way? Well, it's the Lord's Supper. It's not merely coming to worship, that's part of it, but we want unbelievers to come you know, to church so they can hear the gospel. But we partake in the Lord's Supper. And so baptism and the Lord's Supper really function together to visually display who's in and who's out. I think that's one of the ways that membership is made clear. In the time of the Reformation, The reformers, they're having to wrestle with, well, what makes a true church? Because now, there's not just the one church, the Roman Catholic Church. Now we divide up, so what makes a true church? And they said, well, there's these two marks of a church, a true church. There's the right preaching of the word, and there's the right administration of the ordinances. And so you can picture the preaching of the word is like water being poured forth that would bring about spiritual life and growth. Then the ordinances could be pictured like this bowl into which the water is being poured. They contain the church. They define the boundaries and the perimeters of the church. That's really how baptism and the Lord's Supper function. Now, as I said at the beginning, this idea of membership really gets applied and fleshed out in Acts and in the epistles. You know, the leaders in churches being established, we see something more of the worship and the fellowship and sort of the life of the church. We see more imagery of the church as a body, and Paul explicitly talks of members of the body in 1 Corinthians 12, the church as a temple, the church as a family. But all of this really rests on the foundation that Jesus has laid here. You know, a church is composed of disciples who confess the truth about Jesus, and live lives committed to repentance and obedience to heaven. And therefore, church has this in and out, those who are part of that and those who are not. Now any questions, I know we've kind of run out of time, but any questions about that as we start painting a picture of membership? I completely agree with the membership analogy, but I wonder how far out that analogy can we bind and loose or put this into practice. I had a situation where I worked with a number of believers in a group and One of the brothers or one of the believers is not acting like a Christian for a good long time. How much can that group signify and speak to the people around us and say that that person is not acting like a Christian? I don't know how much that connects to this example, per se. Right. Yeah, and I think the main thing I would stress in that kind of situation, I think we could wish that just sort of all the churches in the world were very, made that very clear and people would, yeah, there wasn't sort of the issue that there are. But I think the biggest thing for us is how can we as a church be faithful so that we are sort of that shining light where it's very clear that we are calling Christ and trying to exemplify what the church is called to be. And hopefully someone watching our community would see that difference. Yeah, great question. Alright, well, if you have other questions for me, feel free to ask them offline, and that's helpful as I prepare to move forward. But let's close with a prayer. Father, we thank you for this time to reflect on your design for the church. Lord, it's an awesome responsibility that we have to exercise these keys that you've given us. We pray that you would help us to do so faithfully. to do so in a way that would truly reflect the reality of heaven and in a way that would honor you. We pray that you would help this body to grow up in greater maturity in Christ for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.