Picking A Local Church

Not all local churches are the same. There are good ones and there are bad ones. And you have to be able to tell the difference. If you become involved in a bad church that preaches a distorted Gospel, you could be deceived, or at best, spin your wheels in a cause that is more dangerous than useless.

So, how do you pick? Local churches are as thick as fleas on a dog. They are all different to one degree or another. Some are bigger and some are smaller. Some are friendly and some are not. Some have upbeat music while some rely on traditional hymns. But what is most important? What really makes a good church?

This is the key element. There are local churches that lead people to God for salvation and teach His Word; and there there are local churches that will deceive you, teaching false ways to God that only lead to hell teaching the opinions of men instead of the Word of God. This is the single most important element. Is the local church true and faithful to the Word of God or are they not?

As for me, I have chosen to be a part of an Independent Bible Church. That's the territory I have staked out as a pastor. But what kind of a church is that? What does Independent mean? Does it mean that we can't get along with anyone else? Does it mean that we won't fellowship or cooperate with other churches - that we are as independent as a hog on ice? Not at all. It simply means we are free from outside control.

No denomination controls the affairs of our church. We are self governing, and we believe that was how the early church functioned in the book of Acts. Like them, we choose our own officers and call our own pastor. We own our own building. We make our own decisions, following the leading of the Holy Spirit and the guidance of the Word, of course.

But we also feel it was the responsibility of the local church to preserve sound doctrine. In 1st Timothy 3:15, Paul writes, "But if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, the pillar and the ground of truth." That's the local church. It is the pillar and the ground of the truth. In His letters to the seven churches, Jesus wrote condemnation to the church in Pergamus because they tolerated false doctrines within their midst. Revelation 2:14-16 says,

"But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth."

Jesus will judge us as a church based on our adherence to sound doctrine.

The early church was autonomous. Modern churches need to be autonomous. Jesus is our head and we follow His Word for our direction. To be independent means we have to rely on the Lord, not some outside organization. This should drive us to our knees in prayer.

But we are also a Bible Church. That means we are centered on the Word of God. The Bible and the Bible alone is our authority. We don't follow some man. We don't follow some creed or doctrinal statement. We follow the Bible to the best of our abilities. We do this because we believe the Bible is sufficient. In 2nd Timothy 3:15 it says: "And the from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." The Scriptures are necessary to learn the way of salvation. Then it continues in 2nd Timothy 3:16-17, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." If that's what the Word of God does, what more do we need?

Yes, there are good creeds and good catechisms. We can use them. They can help us succinctly crystallize and explain the doctrines of the Bible. But they don't contain all the Word of God, so they aren't sufficient. There are good traditions that we can follow, but they never super cede the Word of God. This is why we are a Bible Church, and this is why we teach and preach the Word of God in all of our services.

If you attend our services, you really ought to bring your Bible because that is what we use every time - every week. Every week, week after week, you are going to find me standing in the pulpit teaching the Word. There really isn't much variety. I've heard of churches that week after week continually have a variety act. They feature a Christian rock concert one week, then a Christian karate expert the next week giving his testimony and breaking boards. They have all kinds of acts to keep people's attention. I guess the make-believers need that. But hopefully, you don't need a juggler or a dancing pony to make church entertaining. Hopefully, you attend because you take the Word of God seriously and want to learn what God has to say.

Here you just get the word, straight and unvarnished. We believe it is the most important element of our worship. As we study the Words of Scripture, the Word comes alive in our hearts. It purifies us, prunes away the dead wood. It washes us clean. It is our daily food - our milk and meat. It is what causes us to grow into spiritual maturity and holiness. The Word convicts and challenges us. It continually shows us new ways to worship God. What could be more exciting than that?

Why There is a Local Church - Part Five

The universal church is made up of only born-again believers adopted into the family of God. The local church, however, has a mixture of believers and make-believers. We learned this from two parables: the parable of the wheat and the tares, which taught that the enemy sows make-believers within the church that look and act like genuine believers but never produce fruit; and from the parable of the mustard seed, that showed that the church grows big enough to form a perch for the birds of the air that, according to the parable of the sower, snatch away the seed of the Word from the make-believers. It has been this way from the beginning. Make believers are within the Church basking in the blessings of church membership, but not understanding the truth and craving false teaching. It tickles their ears.

Look at Paul's charge to the young pastor Timothy in 2nd Timothy 4:1-4:

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned to fables.

Paul's mandate for every preacher called by God is to preach the Word. Why? Because the day would come when sound doctrine would not be tolerated. People won't want to hear the Bible. They will only want their ears tickled with feel good sermons and prosperity gospel sermons.

But do you see this? While God's true servants are preaching the Word, Satan's servants are preaching their fables. And the tares prefer the fables because it tickles their ears. And if the true believers don't check out the teaching - if they don't act like the noble Bereans who scoured the pages of Scripture to make sure the teaching they were hearing was correct - soon the fables will become the primary doctrines of the local church. When it disagrees with what they used to believe they will separate from the "unenlightened" believers who want to adhere to the old way and still believe the Bible, and they will start a new church or a new denomination.

Now, don't get me wrong. Sometimes it is in the reverse order as a group of believers will leave an apostate denomination to return to Biblical principles. The Protestant Reformation was such an example as they left the Roman Catholic Church to return to the Bible as their sole authority. The Bible Church movement is another example as they came out of the liberal denominations to return to the fundamental doctrines of the faith. So the separation goes both ways.

Nowadays, some of the denominations don't even get the Gospel right. It's been that way since the beginning too, since Paul had to write the book of Galatians to counteract a false gospel. But that is the very heart of our faith, isn't it? As Romans 1:16 says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believers, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. If they get the Gospel wrong, there is no other way of salvation, no way into the universal church, no way into the family of God. And people stay lost and condemned.

And Satan wins. Satan always wins if he keeps people from getting saved and if he can screw up our doctrines. Satan always wins if he can divide us. So the diversity of denominations is an accomplishment of Satan, not of God. We almost have to wonder why some of them even call themselves churches if they deny the Scriptures and teach an incorrect Gospel. They aren't leading people to God, but away from Him. They aren't leading people to salvation and heaven, but misleading them right into hell.

In his book, Let the Church Be the Church, Ray Ortland asks, "Has your church really become part of the church, or did it just steal the label?" What he was asking was this: has your local church really become part of the universal church, or is a counterfeit? there are a lot of churches that aren't churches yet they masquerade as churches. John MacArthur claims,

"I am convinced that in the name of Christianity, there are many places that call themselves churches that are not churches, and they have men leading them who call themselves pastors who are not pastors, and they have congregations who call themselves Christians who are not Christian. They are not churches, and they are not pastors, and they are not Christians, and yet they proudly post the label, Christian."

So no, not all local churches are the same. there are good ones and there are bad ones. there are good denominations and there are bad denominations. It all depends on their adherence to the truth of the Scriptures. And you must be able to tell the difference.

Why There is a Local Church - Part Four

Lat time, in talking about the makeup of the local church, we looked at the Parable of the Wheat and Tares in Matthew 13. We saw that while Jesus populates the local church with true, born-again believers, Satan populates the local church with make-believers - the tares. They look just like the genuine, but they aren't. They never bear fruit.

Today, we want to look at the second parable Jesus told. It is the Parable of the Mustard Seed in Matthew 13:31-32:

Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.

Jesus was talking about the church beginning small. It began with just 120 people praying in the upper room on the day of Pentecost, but the church would grow large and fill the earth. The mustard seed is a tiny seed, but the bush it grows into could reach fifteen feet high. That's plenty big enough for birds to roost in.

But what are the birds? That's the question. I've always learned that the immediate context helps us understand the meaning of any passage. So, does Jesus talk about birds anywhere else in the immediate context? Sure He does! He does so in the Parable of The Sower where a farmer goes out to sow seed in his field. In Matthew 13:4, it says: "And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured them." When Jesus explained the parable, He told us the seed was the Word of God and the one who snatched the seed away was the evil one - Satan. We see this in Matthew 13:18-19:

"Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside."

So, Satan is active in snatching away the Word of God from those who don't understand - like the unsaved tares. He accomplishes this within the church through his false teachers and false prophets who teach things contrary to sound doctrine. Where do you think so many silly doctrines come from? Certainly, they are not found in the Bible.

False teachers have been in the church from the beginning, and the tares are always ready to listen to them and believe them. The tares aren't saved, remember? They don't have the Holy Spirit within them to guide them to the truth. So false doctrines make sense to them. They seem appealing. They tickle their ears. And a battle over doctrine erupts within the church, maybe a split happens, and often a new denomination is started.

Why There is a Local Church - Part Three

From the beginning of the church's existence, the church has existed as a collection of local churches. Each city had it s own. Each region had its own. But, boy, we've sure taken this concept to the extreme in our day, haven't we? Today there are literally hundreds of denominations, and a good size city may literally have hundreds of churches. There are local churches on practically every corner. Sometimes one corner can have four churches on it, one each from a different denomination. Any small village might have three Methodist churches and a half dozen Baptist churches.

And we wonder why? Why has the church fractured into so many different denominations? Why have they, in turn, fractured into so many different branches? We have American Baptists, Southern Baptists, General Baptists, Conservative Baptists, Regular Baptists, Missionary Baptists, Reformed Baptists, and I'm just getting warmed up. I grew up Baptist, by the way, so I am one of them.

But why? Why can't we get along? Why can't we have a united doctrine and a united voice? Why do we have to disagree so much? Yeah, I know. Somebody said we are all people. And by that, we mean fallen, sinful people usually too intent upon our own wishes and desires instead of worrying about what God wants. They claim if you put two Baptists in a room together, you'll get three opinions on any given subject. But that's probably true of any denomination.

There is an even more basic reason, though, for why we fracture so much. The answer is found in Matthew 13, in two parables Jesus told. The first is about the wheat and the tares. The second is the parable of the mustard seed. We'll cover the first today.

The parable of the wheat and tares is found in Matthew 13:24-30:

Another parable He put forth to them, saying: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, "Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?" He said to them, "An enemy has done this." The servant said to him, "Do you want us then to go and gather them up?" But he said, "No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let them both grow together until the harvest, and at that the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, 'First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn, but gather the whet into my barn.'"

In understanding the parable, the farmer sowing wheat, according to Matthew 13:37-38, is Jesus sowing the sons of the kingdom, or believers, throughout the world. For our benefit, we'll consider this as happening in the local church as well. The enemy is Satan. The tares are a weed, probably darnel, that looks and grows like the wheat. It's really hard to tell them apart, with one major exception - the tares never produce fruit. The tares never produce a crop of wheat. But you can't tell until the harvest. The enemy would sow tares into the field to destroy the crops and the livelihood of the farmer. So this is Satan's way of sabotaging the work of building the church. And he has been quite successful.

While Christ populates the church with born-again believers, Satan populates the church with make-believers who look and act like everyone else in the pews. But they never bear fruit. They take up space. They use up resources. They demand their share of the positions on the committees. But they never contribute anything of value to the life of the church. Yet, they are there, side by side with the true believers within the church. Like tares, they are so intertwined with the root system and so hard to pick out, that it is impossible to get rid of them. Which is why Jesus said that the separation won't take place until the end times judgment when the saved will be taken to heaven and the lost will be cast into hell.

Until then, our churches will always be a mixture of saved and unsaved people within our walls. The better churches may have fewer while the apostates churches may be almost all tares. But unsaved people are always a part of the mix, and they will be until the end. Always there to oppose the work and oppose true doctrine. No wonder there are so many disagreements and divisions within the local church.

Why is There a Local Church - Part Two

Of all the names the New Testament uses for the local church, the one I like best is the family of God. When we are born again into the family of God, we become brothers and sisters in Christ, joined not by the bloodline of our parents, but by the shed blood of Christ. Then we begin functioning like a family - a spiritual family, We begin functioning in much the same way as our flesh and blood families functioned.

You can see this in Acts 2:44-47,

"Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved."

That's Jesus building His church. And they loved each other. They took care of each other. They acted like family. And the local church made a stronger family for them than their own flesh and blood brothers and sisters, parents, or even children in some cases who often turned on them when they trusted Christ. When their flesh and blood families disowned them, their spiritual family took them in.

So as you can see, the church is a mystical, spiritual entity. It exists over space and time made up of spiritually regenerated people. But we can't see the universal church. We can't minister through the universal church. We can't fellowship with something that is ethereal. We need a place with real flesh and blood people.

That's why local churches have been in existence since the day of Pentecost as groups of believers banded together to form local congregations for mutual fellowship and encouragement. Wherever the apostles went, they would form local churches. Each city would have its own with its own leadership, and there would be numerous churches throughout a country or throughout a region. So the universal church has always existed as local churches. So we can think of the universal church as a concept, but we have to have a local church to be a part of. I trust you have made a commitment to join and serve through a local church.

Why is There a Local Church

This month, I've begun a new sermon series in our church on the local church. I wanted to share some of the things I've been preaching. First, I assume you have some concept of the church. You know that the church isn't a building or a denomination. The church is made up of a redeemed people. The word church comes from a compound word in Greek, ecclesia. It is composed of the prefix ek, meaning out of, and klesia, meaning called. Together they render called out. The church is a group of people called out by God.

Jesus said in Matthew 16:18, "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The church is a spiritual entity that Jesus Himself is building by calling out people from the world to be His. He used a little play on words here. In Greek, the word for Peter is a word for a small stone, while the word for rock is a word describing bedrock. The church is not built on Peter, the pebble, but upon the bedrock of his confession of faith in Matthew 16:16 that Jesus is, "the Christ, the Son of the Living God," a confession of faith unto salvation.

Jesus is building His church worldwide. He's building it in unlikely places as far away as China and Iran - in places like South America and Africa - places where now great revivals are happening. He's not just at work in North America. As a matter of fact, it seems like He is doing greater work building His church elsewhere. The church of Jesus Christ is worldwide.

It also spans time. Jesus began His church dramatically on the day of Pentecost with miraculous signs: the sounds of a mighty, rushing wind, the Spirit of God descending as tongues of fire to rest upon each disciple, and the gift of tongues as each apostle arose and speaking in his own language was understood in the native language of each hearer. And they preached the Word of God clearly and forcefully. They proclaimed the Gospel message in power. And people were saved. Peter preached, according to Acts 2:21, "And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." That very day, 3,000 souls repented of their sin, trusted Jesus Christ for salvation, called on His name, and were added to the church.

The church is still being built today as each of us fulfills the Great Commission of Jesus in Matthew 29:19-20:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen."

So what is the church of Jesus Christ? It is a spiritual entity made up of every person born again into the Family of God through faith in Jesus Christ, living or dead, no matter where they live and worship and in any age since the day of Pentecost until today.

It is described in many ways in Scripture using many relationships we can understand. The church is called the bride of Christ in Ephesians 5:23-32 and Revelation 21:9. In Ephesians 1:22-23, it is called the body of Christ whose head is Jesus. There are many other descriptions, but the one I like best is when the church is called a family - the family of God. It is called this in Ephesians 3:15. As in a family, you enter the family by being born into it, just as we are born-again into the family of God. So may I ask you, have you been born again into the family of God through repentant faith in Jesus Christ? Are you part of this family? If not, I urge you to do so today and join the best family on earth - the family of God.