There are many other good questions we could ask which would point up our need for a church, but let me give you five good reasons to join a church which preaches the gospel, and models Christian living.
1. Assurance for ourselves. You should not join the church in order to be saved, but you should join the church to help you in making certain that you are saved. Remember the words of Jesus in John’s gospel?
“Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him…. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love…. You are my friends if you do what I command…. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them,” (John 14:21; 15:10, 14; 13:17).
In joining the church, we put ourselves in a position where we ask our brothers and sisters to hold us accountable to live according to what we speak with our mouth. We ask them to encourage us sometimes by reminding us of ways that they have seen God work in our lives, and other times to challenge us when we may be moving away from obedience to Him. Your membership in a local church is that congregation’s public testimony that your life gives evidence of regeneration.
Membership in a local church is not saving, but it is a reflection of salvation. And if there is no reflection, how are we to know about the salvation claimed?
In becoming a member of the church, we are grasping hands with each other to know and be known by each other, and to help and encourage one another when we may need to be reminded of God’s work in our lives, or to be challenged about major discrepancies between our talk and our walk.
2. Evangelizing the world. You should join a local church also for the sake of evangelizing the world. Together we can better spread the gospel at home and abroad. We can do this by our words, as we share the message of the good news with others, and as we help others to do that. A local church is, by nature, a missionary organization.
We back this up with our actions as we work to show God’s love by meeting the physical needs of orphans, the sick, children, or the disadvantaged. Through our own fellowship of churches we help spread the gospel around the world, and we provide millions of dollars and thousands of volunteers to help those who have some immediate physical needs like disaster relief, education, and countless other ministries. Even as imperfect as we are, if God’s spirit is genuinely at work in us, He will use our lives and words to help demonstrate to others the truth of His gospel. This is a special role now that we won’t have in Heaven. This is the special privilege of the church now—to be part of God’s plan, to take His gospel to the world.
3. Exposing false gospels. God intends us to be together in this way to expose false gospels. It is through our coming together as Christians that we show the world what Christianity really is. In our churches, we debunk messages and images which purport to be biblical Christianity but really are not. Must it not surely be the case that some of those who are not members of evangelical churches are not so because they do not really believe the same evangel? Part of the church’s mission is to recognize and defend the true gospel and to prevent perversions of it. We must realize that part of our task in evangelizing may very well be not only to present positively the gospel of Jesus Christ, but also to dismantle the bad, confusing, distorted witnesses that have raised themselves up as Christian churches, but which in reality confuse the gospel more than they confirm it.
4.Edification of the Church. A fourth reason for joining the church is the edification or building up of the church. Joining a church will help counter our wrong individualism and will help us to realize the corporate nature of Christianity. When you study the New Testament you find that our Christian lives are supposed to involve our care and concern for each other. {Note from cent: don't tear this out of the context here: Pastor Dever is talking about care inside a context that presupposes #3} That is part of what it means to be a Christian. And though we do it imperfectly, we should be committed to do this. We intend to encourage even baby steps in righteousness, love, selflessness and Christlikeness.
In our church’s membership class I often tell the story of a friend who worked for a campus Christian ministry while attending a church in which I was a member. He would always slip in right after the hymns, sit there for the sermon, and then leave. I asked him one day, why he didn’t come for the whole service. “Well,” he said, “I don’t get anything out of the rest of it.” “Have you ever thought about joining the church?” I responded. He thought that was just an absurd question. He said, “Why would I join the church? If I join them, I think they would just slow me down spiritually.” When he said this I wondered what he understood being a Christian to mean. I replied, “Have you ever considered that maybe God wants you to link arms with those other people? Sure, they might slow you down, but you might help to speed them up. Maybe that’s part of God’s plan for us as we live together as Christians!"
5. The Glory of God. Finally, a Christian should join a church for the glory of God. Peter wrote to some early Christians, Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us, (I Peter 2:12). Amazing, isn’t it? But then again, you can tell that Peter had heard the teaching of His Master. You remember what Jesus had taught in the Sermon on the Mount. Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16). Again, the surprising assumption seems to be that God will receive the glory for our good works. If that is true of our lives individually, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to find that God’s Word says that this is also the case with our lives together as Christians. God intends that the way we love each other will identify us as followers of Christ. Recall Jesus’ famous words in John 13:34-35A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Our lives together are to mark us out as His, and are to bring Him praise and glory.
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