2009 May | CLBC

May 31, 2009 AM

Posted by Ken Lowe on May 31, 2009 in Sermons

Sunday Morning Sermon – Colossians 4:7-18

What does it mean to be a member of a Biblical Church?

Posted by Brian Mann on May 27, 2009 in Blog

Being a member of a biblical church involves both privileges and responsibilities. My understanding of this grows as I grow in this area and I do not consider that I have perfect understanding in this. Even so, I believe many people are missing these simple truths. So what does it mean to be a member of a biblical church. I believe it means at least 2 major things:

1. It means being protected spiritually more than you would be on your own. I get this from First Timothy 1:20 which speaks of Paul handing a person over to Satan. What does that mean? According to First Corinthians 5:5, it means putting someone out of the church. Therefore, I conclude that being put out of the church means you are unprotected, and being part of the church, formally and faithfully, means you are protected from Satan in a particular way. This in itself is a reason to be formally a part of a local church that believes the Bible.

2. Being a member of a Biblical Church also means being under authority. This certainly goes with the aforementioned point that you are protected in a particular way, not to say that you do not experience spiritual warfare, but that there is at least more protection offered by being part of the church than not being part of the church formally. In addition, being under authority is of course first being under the authority of the Lord, but I am also referring to being under the authority of the church’s leaders. I get this from Hebrews 13:17 which says to “obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls…” Again, the points overlap, because here we discover that the leaders are God’s means of protecting you via prayer (for keeping watch most certainly refers to prayer as does the context). Even so, being under the authority of the church’s leaders and God most importantly by obeying him in formal church membership, includes that one is protected in the Lord via prayer from that self-same leadership. And again, this is in a biblical church model for which we must strive toward and become, and if looking for a church, this we must look for:

a. godly men leading the church understanding their role to pray over their people so that Satan would not have their lunch per se.

b. humble people submitting under God’s ordained institution to renew the world and be a blessing.