For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
— Romans 10:10
If you want fellowship with the church, if you have not formally joined, there are two ways to do so. One is to pray in public, give money, show enthusiasm and fill out a card. The other is to do first things first?join the universal church?and then also fill out a card. An important part of joining the church is public confession. Why does the Lord want us to make a public confession? The Bible says, "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved" (Romans 10:8b-10).
The heart believes and the mouth confesses. Both are necessary to salvation. Even the thief on the cross made his poor pitiful confession. That is why God wants us to fellowship with each other, get together and tell the world and tell each other?because with the mouth confession is made for salvation. My plea is for those who have never undergone the marvel of the regeneration of new birth to take this seriously. Remember you get into the ark through the door, and Jesus Christ is the door. If you reject the ark, you reject the door, and if you reject the door you perish in the flood.
thought
We are members of Christ's body the Church. Through us, you and me, Christ wants to reach out to others through our living and our mouths.
prayer
O Lord, open my mouth to confess You boldly to people I meet. In my heart I believe but with my mouth I am slow to speak of You to those who do not know You.
Then the church [singular noun] throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.
— Acts 9:31
Sometimes people come into the local church who have never come into the universal church. People join a church who have never been born into the true church. Some churches actually throw the doors open and say, "Now we'll sing the closing hymn for those who want to unite with the church. Come to the front." Al Capone could come in and join. Nobody asks any questions; they just take in anybody. I do not believe in that at all, and I know you do not either. I believe that if you are going to get into a local church, you should first be in the universal church, which Jesus purchased with His own blood.
You should get into the church with rebirth, the Holy Spirit and regeneration. Then you should join a local assembly. It is impossible to receive Christ and reject His people. How do you find the Shepherd? Go where the sheep are! If you do not know where the Shepherd is, then go where the sheep are. All else being equal, that is where you will find the Shepherd. Whoever receives Christ must receive His people too. Jesus said, "He who receives you receives me" (Matthew 10:40a). Whoever rejects the bride rejects the Bridegroom, and whoever rejects the flock rejects the Shepherd. I think that is clear enough.
thought
One does not enter the Church through the front door of a building, the "New Comers Class" or an interview with elders. It is by being born of God through faith in Christ. Then comes identification with a local group of fellow believers who form a local
prayer
Lord, thank You for local believers with whom I can worship, through whom I can be ministered to and with whom I can be part of Your Church in my community.
If [God] did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; ...if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.
— 2 Peter 2:5,9
Third, the church is depicted as an ark on the flood waters. As the ark of Noah floated on the waters and contained all who would be salvaged, so the church of Jesus Christ is an ark on the flood waters and contains all who will be salvaged. Remember that! All in the ark are saved, and all outside the ark perish. All around us is a perishing world, and we float on top of it in a little ark called the church. All that are not in the church?the ark?will perish. You say, "Now hold on a minute. Do you mean to say that if you don't join the Avenue Road Church, you will be lost?" No, but what I do say is that the church is the ark containing the ransomed, and inside the ark is life. Outside the living church of Christ are the lost. Inside are the saved. You are not saved by joining a church, which is a mistake local churches make.
The animals all came into Noah's ark by the door. Christ is the door to the church, and whoever will be saved must come in by the door. There is no other ark on the flood. Suppose someone said, "Well, hold on a minute. Don't be so narrow-minded. Let's be tolerant. We do not want to get in Noah's ark; we want an ark of our own." Well, there weren't any other arks on the flood. It was either get into Noah's ark or perish. A few got into Noah's ark, and God preserved the race. In the church of Christ, God is salvaging a small number from the flood. A fatal error is the independent life?to say that you are a Christian, but you don't associate with any churches. You are a Christian, but you don't feel the necessity to join a church. It is true that there are hypocrites in the church?not in the true church, but in the local assembly. Even Jesus had His Judas. The local assembly and the true church of Christ are sometimes not synonymous.
thought
While the ark is not used as an explicit image of the Church, a number of references are found in the New Testament suggesting a typological analogy. The Church is the only ark in the flood of judgment and Christ is the only way to get on board.
prayer
How good, Lord, to be part of Your Church in the turbulent world sea. 'In a love which cannot cease, I am His and He is mine.'
There is one body and one Spirit?just as you were called to one hope when you were called?one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
— Ephesians 4:4-5
If you are a member of the true church of Christ, then you are a member of the company that will make up the true bride of Christ. As a local church, we are a miniature of the bride of Christ. A second description of the church is the body of Christ. Jesus Christ is the head, and as the head of His church He directs it. My hands move because my head tells them to. My head directs my body. The head of a local church is not the pastor, but Jesus Christ the Lord. He is the head of the universal church of which the local church is a part. A local church is not all the body of Christ, but in miniature it is the body of Christ.
thought
Church as the body of Christ is a uniquely Pauline image. Christ is the head. Believers are body members with special body functions. As members of the same body we are interrelated and interdependent. No one of us can exist as a loner cut off from others.
prayer
Lord, thank You for the many other body members through whom You have ministered to me. And thank You for the privilege of being part of Your body through whom You minister to others.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
— Ephesians 5:25-27
. . . the church is the bride of Christ. Jesus was a complete man. He had all the nature of a man, but He never married. He could have, but He never did. He never married any woman though He was a true and complete man. He never married a daughter of a woman that He might marry His whole church, the bride. A true local church is the bride of Christ in recapitulation, in miniature. Everything that is in the whole church of Christ should be recapitulated in the local church. The church, part of it in heaven and part of it on earth, is the bride of Christ. Our Lord Jesus washed His bride, regenerated her and prepared her. He is coming back to take her?the whole church?as His bride. But any local church is the whole church in recapitulation, just as a local election recapitulates a national one.
The same liberty is expressed. The same candidates run. They talk about each other; they plead their own worth and put up bulletins and do the same thing on a small scale that they do on the federal level. That may be a poor illustration, but the whole bride of Christ is recapitulated. Any local church is what the whole church is, just in miniature "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church" (Ephesians 5:25-29). This figure drawn from husbands and wives is applied directly without apology to Jesus Christ and His church. Just as a young man would not marry a dirty bride, so Jesus Christ will not marry a church that has stains or wrinkles or blemishes. His desire is for a glorious church, and He wants to love that church as a man loves his own bride.
thought
What sacrificial love has Christ demonstrated for His Church! And we are His Church. He feeds us and cares for us. Even our small and weak local group of believers is part of His Church!
prayer
Only You, O Christ, can make Your Church holy and blameless! Thank You for Your redeeming love so deep and wide.
Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. . . .
— Romans 12:4-6a
When we know what the universal church is, we will understand what a local church is. The average local church is to a large extent a social organization where well-intentioned people get together and know each other. They are drawn together by coffee, tea, friendship, skating parties and things like that. Those things are harmless. But when we know what the church really is, we will understand that while these things are all right on the margin of the church, they are not the purpose of it. Meeting, shaking hands and drinking coffee are perfectly legitimate if we do not need them?they are not what holds us together. But when those activities are what hold us together, we do not have a church; we have something else. Unfortunately, we might as well admit it: That is often all that the churches have.
thought
To be a part of the Church of Christ extended around the world ? those who have been spiritually born through Christ ? is an expression of the one Church. Every national and local church is authentically Church though worshiping in different languages and cultur
prayer
Lord, when I think of Your universal Church?my brothers and sisters in far away places, I am humbled. Many of that extended family serve You at great personal cost. May I faithfully serve!
And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
— Ephesians 1:22-23
It is time for us to reconsider this matter of the church. Most people think of the church as a familiar social fact. Their attitude toward Protestantism generally is that of a matter of course, and people, even average Christians, think they are in favor of the church. They favor the church much the same as they support motherhood, decency and sanitation. It is as accepted as a convention that we never question or doubt. If anybody does question or doubt, they are considered communists or atheists. People will even pour out their money to support social convention. But I wonder how many ever sit down and say, "What is this? Maybe the church is just something that is here; it doesn't have any value and doesn't have any reason for being here."
How many present-day Christians have ever searched the Scripture with a serious burden on their hearts to know what the church is? Is it simply a convention that is carried on? How many Christians have ever prayed earnestly for light from heaven about it? It seems that the average person spends more time and intellectual labor each year filling out income tax forms than he or she spends in a lifetime trying to learn from the Scriptures and from the light of the Spirit what the church is and what he or she ought to do about it. Why is it in the world? What did Jesus mean when He said, "On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it" (Matthew 16:18b)? If people were to chew their pencils and walk the floor and go out for a walk and come back and work on it and search and think and discern and divide and go through all that they have to go through to make out their income taxes every year, I believe that they could come up with some wonderful answers.
thought
What is the Church? "Church" as part of the name on the outdoor sign or as a social institution with a plethora of activities may be only a part or may not be the Church at all. What is the Church in biblical perspective?
prayer
Lord, as I study Your Word the Church emerges as something so close to Your heart, so vital to Your purpose, so enabled by Your Spirit. No wonder Satan seeks to distort my understanding.
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
— 2 Timothy 4:3
n the church many are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. If you do not like what I am saying, I want to ask you something. Think about the company you run with. What do they talk about most? God and the love of God, or other things? You decide that. Many Christians today will not endure sound doctrine. Paul described these people as having "itching ears" (2 Timothy 4:3). They did not like sound doctrine, but they were Christians. They called themselves Christians, but their ears were itchy. A commentator I read some years back explained this. In Paul's day the pigs had a disease called "itching ears." The symptom was that their ears got inflamed and itched terribly. The only way they could get relief from these inflamed ears was to go to a pile of rocks and rub their ears earnestly and vigorously.
The stones scratched their ears for the time being. Paul saw that, smiled a sad smile and said, "I am running into Christians here and there who are just like that. They love pleasure more than God and will not endure sound doctrine. They have itching ears so they will be eager for something else beside the sound doctrine and holy ways. They will pile up teachers everywhere and rub their ears for dear life." That is a most dramatic and colorful illustration. A lot of so-called Christians have to have piles of rocks to rub their ears. They will not endure sound doctrine. I think that is a description of the churches, Protestant and evangelical. In the light of New Testament predictions, teachings and standards, is what I just said about the prevailing religious mood untrue? Is what I have said about the prevailing religious mood uncharitable? Is it extreme? I do not think it is, but I only ask you to do one thing: Look around you and look in your own heart. See which of these pictures describes the churches you know.
thought
"Preach the Word!" Paul exhorted Timothy. These days we need the preaching and teaching of the Word. Our ears itch for a soothing "word" entertainingly presented. But we need the Word that corrects and rebukes as well as encourages.
prayer
O Father, cure my itching ears that I may recognize and submit to Your truth.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
— 1 Corinthians 12:27
he church should be a healthy, fruitful vineyard that will bring honor to Christ, a church after Christ's own heart where He can look at the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Among the people should be a beautiful simplicity and a radiant Christian love so it would impossible to find gossips and talebearers. There should be a feeling of humble reverence and an air of joyous informality, where each one esteems others better than himself or herself, where everyone is willing to serve but no one jockeys to serve. Childlike candor without duplicity or dishonesty should mark the church, and the presence of Christ should be felt and the fragrance of His garments smelled by His beloved. Prayers should be answered so regularly that we think nothing of it. It would be common because God is God, and we are His people.
When necessary, miracles would not be uncommon. Is that, in the light of Scripture, unreasonable and undesirable to expect of a church? . . . Is this impossible? Is anything impossible with God? Is anything impossible where the Lord Jesus Christ is? Is this unscriptural? No! The only thing that is unscriptural about this vision is that it is not up to the standard of Scripture yet. The scriptural standards are still high. If you answer, "No, it is not unreasonable, undesirable or impossible," then you are saying you believe in this. If you believe in this, if you would like to become the church that could begin this reformation, this change toward the better, this recapturing of the ancient power of God in the souls of people, then there must be a radical psychological break with the prevailing religious mood.
thought
For the church to be Church each of us must live in submission to Christ the Head of the Church and function as healthy body members through whom He can reach out in this world. Are we so living?
prayer
Renew Your Church, O Lord. Renew me. In Jesus' name.f