HOW TO PLAY CHURCH (PART 2)

HOW TO PLAY CHURCH (PART 2)

A church that is real, living, and vital is communicating the gospel to dead people, and the gospel alone can make them alive. That’s the mission of the church. There is no way biblically that the church can ever court the world. The church must be the conscience of the world. The church must be so well defined in fulfilling its role that it becomes the antagonist of the world. For those outside of Jesus Christ, the pew in the church should be the most uncomfortable seat in the world because we present a gospel that divides. But when the church courts the world, it dies—the Sardis church thought it was alive but it was courting the world, so it wasn’t alive, it was dead (Rev. 3:1).

The duty of the church is not only to teach saints but also to warn men of God’s standards. We’ve got to proclaim that man is a sinner, that he’s separated from a holy God, and that in the eyes of God he’s an object of God’s judgment—he’s a child of wrath, as Paul says in Ephesians 2:13. To boldly proclaim the truth about Jesus Christ and the truth about man in his sin is to divide.

The true church of Jesus Christ is not a religious institution that welcomes everyone; it is the body of Jesus Christ set apart to God, uniquely married and wedded to Christ, and redeemed by faith. No one outside of that redemption can be a part of it. The requirement for the church and our task as a people is to warn those who have not received Christ, to warn them in love but to warn them nonetheless that they are in danger of the terror of the Lord. This is our task.

This is not a warning to people outside the church. This is a warning to us who are involved in the church to be sure we are real. The only way we can ever be united and become one as Christ prayed we might is when we all are real in Christ.

Notice the scene in Matthew 7:22 and the phrase “on that day.” That’s important because it is a reference to a particular day that is coming when Christ is going to judge. The idea of “on that day” in the Bible is connected with judgment, and this is a picture of that day. A similar reference to “the day” appears in 1 Corinthians 3:13 in connection with the time of the judgment of believers. It appears frequently in various places in the Bible in connection with divine judgment of unbelievers (cf. Isa. 2:12; Joel 2:1; Mal. 4:5; 1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Pet. 3:10).

In other words, they had no faith to commend them—all they could base their lives on was their works. If you know anything about that you know the Bible says, “By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified” (Rom. 3:20).

In Matthew 7:21–23 we are taken to the final judgment. We are at the Great White Throne seeing some of the people who are confronting Christ at that time. They are saying to Him, “Lord, Lord, here we are, we are the ones who were the religious people.” Peter calls this day “the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men” (2 Pet. 3:7). The phrase “ungodly men” may seem difficult in view of the fact that these are religious people. There is an awesome silence at this judgment.