The sixth mark of a healthy, biblical church is a biblical understanding of church membership.  This one is often misunderstood in our culture.  Part of the reason for confusion about what the Bible says about church membership has more to do with American culture than the teachings of the Bible.  Americans tend to think about churches like they think about restaurants.  When I am going to a restaurant, I think to myself, “What am I in the mood for today?”  That is a consumer mindset.  We have allowed consumerism to bleed into the church.  This was not an issue in the first century.  There was no “church shopping” because there was only one gathering of believers in a particular geographic location.  Nevertheless, that one church did have a membership.  In other words, the church knew who was a part and who was not a part of the church.  Otherwise, Paul could not tell the Corinthians to expel the immoral man if the church had not considered him part of their number in the first place. (1 Corinthians 5)
          There are numerous passages in the New Testament that deal with the doctrine of the church.  In fact the New Testament epistles were written to churches.  So much of the New Testament is devoted to discussing what it means to serve Christ and his people in the context of the local church.  The church in the New Testament does not exist to meet the consumer and entertainment needs of the membership.  Church membership means commitment.  It is commitment first to Christ and second to each other as the Bride of Christ.  John F. Kennedy’s famous quote might be slightly altered to fit a more Christian context, “Ask not what your church can do for you, ask what you can do for your church.”  All of us are prone to think, “What am I going to get out of this?”  But a self-sacrificial lover and follower of Christ should be thinking more about what he or she is putting in to the life of the church.
          Membership in the local church has meaning.  It comes with rights and responsibilities, blessings and accountability.  It is simultaneously our corporate testimony to the saving grace of God in the gospel and the means by which God grows us in that same gospel.  At Oak Crest our commitment to the Lord and our relationships to one another are reflected in our church covenant.  As Christians we are called to be different from the world around us, we are to simultaneously encourage others and be encouraged by others.  We are to be discipled and we are to disciple.  We are to be held accountable and we are to hold accountable.  We are the church.  We are a people of God’s own possession.  We are the Bride of Christ.  “Membership has its privileges.”

​In Christ,
Blain Craig

          In recent weeks, we have been examining the biblical marks of a healthy church.  As I have said on numerous occasions, my greatest desire for Oak Crest is that we are always striving for greater health.  Healthy churches constantly examine their motivations and behaviors with a willingness to conform to the biblical witness when necessary.  We must never be satisfied with the status quo.  The fifth mark is very similar to the third and fourth marks, in that it deals specifically with the gospel message. The third mark dealt with the message of the gospel.  That God creates, we rebel, Christ saves, we respond.  The fourth mark dealt with how God works salvation in our lives through conversion.  Conversion is our faith in Christ and repentance from sin that God accomplishes in our lives.  The fifth mark of a healthy church is the natural result of a biblical understanding of the good news and conversion; it is a biblical understanding of evangelism.
          God has accomplished nothing short of a miracle in saving us, so in response to his gracious mercy and his explicit command, he has called us to share the truth of this glorious gospel with other people.  What is evangelism?  Evangelism is freely, honestly, and truthfully sharing the good news of a crucified and risen savior with people, while trusting that God alone does the saving.  In Acts 16, Paul is in Philippi obeying God’s command to share the good news of Jesus with people in that city.  Verse 14 reveals the wonderful way evangelism works.  “One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.”  Did you notice what happened?  Paul was faithful to articulately, truthfully, and even persuasively present the gospel, but it was God alone who was responsible for opening Lydia’s heart.   We can and should share, but only God can bring new life.
          The problem in many churches today is that there is a lot of emphasis on strategies or methods for sharing.  That is not terrible in itself, but when all the emphasis is on how to get a person to “make a decision” we might be neglecting the real meaning of the gospel.  Mark Dever states it this way, “If conversion is understood as merely a sincere commitment made once, then we need to get everyone to that point of verbal confession and commitment any way we can.  Biblically, though, while we are to care, to plead, and to persuade, our first duty is to be faithful to the obligation we have from God, which is to present the same Good News that He's given to us. God will bring conversions from our presenting this Good News (see John 1:13; Acts 18:9-10).”
          Oak Crest, we all (myself at the top of the list) must be committed to making active evangelism a priority.  God has not given us the message of life so that we can keep it to ourselves.  Let’s seize any moment God grants us to share the life transforming truth of the gospel.
 
In Christ,
Blain Craig

​Last time we looked at the third mark of a healthy church, a biblical understanding of the good news.  The fourth is very similar, but addressing the issue from a slightly different direction.  The third mark dealt with the message of the gospel.  That God creates, we rebel, Christ saves, we respond.  The fourth mark then answers the logical question; how does that good news impact my life.  The answer very simply is: conversion.  The fourth mark of a healthy church is a biblical understanding of conversion.
            Conversion is a change.  In the same way we might think of converting currency, we should also think about the spiritual reality of conversion.  Conversion is change or a turn around.  That is the nature of conversion.  We turn from our sin in repentance and we trust in Christ as our only hope in faith.  Faith and Repentance are two sides of the coin of conversion.  It is something God accomplishes on our behalf to his own glory.  Acts 11: 18 states, “When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”
            Certainly, we actively participate in this response to grace God has granted us, but if we think of our salvation as something we have done on our own, we are mistaken.  A false understanding of the radical, miraculous change God has accomplished in our conversion is a primary reason our land is plagued with false conversions.  Maybe you’ve heard the story of Charles Spurgeon walking on a London street when a drunk approached him.  The conversation went something like this: "Hey, Mr. Spurgeon, I'm one of your converts!" To which Spurgeon responded, "You must be one of mine--you're certainly not one of the Lord's!"
            The reason Spurgeon so readily denied his conversion is because although conversion occurs at the beginning of the Christian life, it is evidenced by the fruit of continued repentance and obedience.  Faith that doesn’t produce fruit is really not faith at all.  If we truly know Christ it will impact our lives in a powerful and ongoing way.  The point Spurgeon was making and Scripture makes abundantly clear is that a genuine conversion will produce genuine fruit.  Praise God for his salvation in Jesus Christ.
 
In Christ,
Blain Craig

As we continue to think about those essential attributes of a healthy church, the third through the fifth of these marks all focus on a similar theme.  That theme is nothing other than the gospel itself.  We must know the gospel, experience the gospel, and share the gospel.  Obviously, the first of these steps is knowing the gospel or understanding the gospel.  A healthy church has a biblical understanding of the good news.  We use that term gospel or good news so much; we are in danger of misusing the term or worse forgetting its meaning altogether.  Forgetting the gospel is unthinkable for the believer because is it the very core of our belief and being.  In fact the gospel as the good news of God’s redemption and saving work is the very focus of the entire universe.
          The story of the gospel starts with God.  God is the creator.  He is good and holy, sovereign and powerful, loving and merciful.  In the beginning he created the heavens and the earth.  If we have spent any time in church life we know this truth, but we often misunderstand why God created the universe.  Simply put, it was and is for his glory.  He created the world perfect and without sin.  God said his creation was good meaning it could not be improved upon.
          As this story of redemption continues, we encounter a road block.  Man is the problem.  Man was made in God’s image reflecting the glory of the creator, but sin entered the world and with it death.  Because of our sin we have a broken relationship of separation from the God who created us to glorify him.  This is a key reality.  We are broken.  In fact, the bible says man in his sinfulness is not only a slave to sin, but he is dead in his sin.
          Good News!  God has provided a redeeming solution to this problem of sin and separation from the beauty and love of God.  He is the solution in the person of the Son, Jesus Christ.  See, Jesus did what Adam had failed to do and what you failed to do.  He was perfectly obedient to the Father, even unto death.  In that death Jesus paid the penalty of death for sin, for all who would come to him in saving faith and repentance.  Jesus drank fully the cup of wrath due me for my rebellion.  This is a love story of the highest order.  The hero is our redeemer, God himself in the flesh, fully God and fully man.
          Finally, this amazing story – this amazing grace - demands a response.  That response is our faith and repentance otherwise known as conversion that we will examine more closely next time.
          A biblical understanding of the good news is at the heart of the mission of the church.  Are we communicating clearly that the sovereign of the universe has supplied the remedy for death?  Or are we presenting Jesus as a band-aid or an additive to an otherwise pretty good life?  Is Jesus the icing on the cake of your life, or is he the cake and the icing and the plate the cake rests upon?  If people don’t understand sin, they can’t understand the good news of the gospel.  Let’s affirm our biblical understanding of the grand, glorious, and great gospel of a risen Lord victorious over death.
 
In Christ,
Blain Craig