We’ve all seen them. They often begin appearing around major holidays like Christmas and Easter and like most memes they have a tiny hint of truth, some outright falsehoods, and are mostly full of facepalms of ridiculous claims. I was recently asked about this particular meme:

At a quick glance the problems with the claims in the meme are myriad. No one thinks Jesus was a Christian. He is the Christ. By definition Jesus cannot be a follower of Jesus. And he is not only a King, but he is the King of kings. He really and truly died for the sins of the world. Regarding hell, here is what Jesus himself said:

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Matthew 10:28 ESV

Since Jesus is God in human form, he is the one to fear. These claims for the so-called “Colonizer Jesus” are simply absurd. On the other side the claims for the historical Jesus are not nuanced enough. Yes, he liberates the oppressed and he is the friend of sinners and he critiques religious hypocrites and pursues true justice, but when these are listed in opposition to “Colonizer Jesus” they are intended to tell a different tale than they actually do. For example, Historical Jesus is a friend of sinners while Colonizer Jesus sends sinners to hell. Both are true. He is the holy and sovereign God who will one day judge the world and he is the merciful and gracious God who gladly forgives and welcomes all who will repent. The meme is attempting to put these two at odds when they are not at odds and it does so by leaving out such key details.

There is a real sense in which the Colonizer Jesus is the image portrayed by many Christian nationalists—those who act as if God’s primary work in this world is to prosper America through economic and military strength. This is why it includes things like Colonizer Jesus is “patriotic” and “endorses holy war”. This isn’t the true Jesus—but neither is the so-called “Historical Jesus”, for this Historical Jesus apparently was just an activist who lost his life rather than the Savior of the world who conquered death by rising from the dead and who will one day bring about true justice in the entire world when he comes again.

Rather than Colonizer Jesus or Historical Jesus, we worship the Lord Jesus Christ—the true Jesus. He comes to liberate the oppressed and end injustice, but he does so first by being oppressed and suffering injustice. He died in the place of his people, having been made to be sin though he himself knew no sin, in order that his people might become the righteousness of God. This he gladly endured that he might save them from their sins. He is coming again to finish what he started.

Now what about the first claim for each? Colonizer Jesus is white while Historical Jesus is a Middle Eastern brown-skinned man. The True Jesus is a Jewish man with light brown skin and dark hair. He does not have blue eyes and light-brown hair. So why is he so often painted as if he were white with blue eyes? The vast majority of those who live in this country are of European descent. If we were mostly, say, Asian folk, our popular imagination of Jesus wouldn’t be white, but Asian. The same would be true if we were mostly of African descent. Consider this following composite image.

Looking at this compilation of Jesus depicted in art, it isn’t hard to figure out either the ethnicity of the artist or the ethnicity of the dominant culture in which the artist lived. For example, the second one down and second from the left is Jesus in a 17th-century Ethiopian painting showing a very brown Jesus while the one directly above it is a very Chinese Jesus with some of his very Chinese disciples! (I happen to be quite fond of “Asian Jesus”!) The top left is an Egyptian painting of Jesus, showing him as a dark-skinned Coptic whereas the bottom left painting by El Greco, a 16th-century Greek artist, portrays Jesus with much lighter skin. According to El Greco’s self portrait, he had lighter skin similar to the tone he gave Jesus. The image in the second row, second from the right is a 6th-century Roman mosaic of him. Again, notice the darker skin.

The reason so much of our Western art shows a lighter-skinned Jesus is because most of Western art was created by and among lighter-skinned folk. To be sure there are those who insist—at least implicitly—on a white Jesus with blue eyes. There are those who want to remake God in their image so they proclaim a Jesus who matches the demographic of their ideal political candidate: a white, Christian, patriotic Jesus who wants to make our nation prosper both economically and militarily. This is not the Jesus we proclaim.

The Jesus we proclaim, the very True Jesus who was born to a virgin named Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, who was crucified, died, and was buried, who descended to the dead, who rose again on the third day and ascended into heaven, who is seated at the right hand of the Father and is coming again to judge the living and the dead, this True Jesus cannot be tamed and made to serve our particular purposes and political ends. Jesus did not come to give our particular political party state or national victories. His work in this world is not being accomplished by military might or by economic power. He is building his church by drawing men and women from every tribe and language and people and nation. In the words of the apostle Paul, speaking of those diverse people whom God calls to salvation,

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Ephesians 2:13–16 ESV

God’s eternal purpose in Christ is to make a diverse kingdom of peoples who are united not by ethnicity but by faith in him, not by shared political views but by faith in him, not by socio-economic status but by faith in him, not by cultural expression but by faith in him. What unites is our common confession: Jesus is Lord.

The truth is Jesus was a light-brown Jewish man. I, personally, gain no benefit whatsoever by thinking of Jesus in any particular skin tone, but then people who look like me are in the majority. Many who are not in the majority are greatly comforted by thinking of Jesus in African tones or Asian tones or South American tones. I cannot personally understand or experience that connection, yet I am glad others can and do. Jesus is the Lord of the nations and while his skin tone is that of a first-century Jewish man, the reality is we all worship him for who he is: the Lord of all the earth.

All this raises a final question: why did the Son of God put on human flesh and come as a Jewish man and not, say, as an Arab or a Roman or any other ethnic group? Before I explain why, the truth is that all those with faith in Jesus are adopted into God’s family. There are no native-born sons and daughters in the kingdom of God. Our rights and privileges as citizens of the kingdom of God are granted to us through God’s grace and mercy. This gets back to the question. Why is Jesus a Jewish man?

The answer is quite simple: God keeps his promises. He made a promise to Abraham that through Abraham God would bless all the families of the earth. This is why Christ’s church is found in every single nation on earth. It is not yet in every people group, but that is coming. From every tribe and language and people and nation Jesus is building his church. This promise to Abraham passed to his son Isaac, and the promise to Isaac passed to his son Jacob—also called Israel. God made this promise even more explicit to him:

And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body.”

Genesis 35:11 ESV

The kings he refers to include the King of kings, the one who would one day rule over all nations, the very one Paul says is the Offspring God promised Abraham. That King is none other than Jesus Christ, the direct descendant of Abraham who came through Israel’s own body, the one who fulfills all of God’s promises. Light skin or dark, yellow or brown, black or white, each one of us stands before a holy God who calls us to trust him and confess that he and he alone is Lord of all.

Because Jesus is Lord, we cannot reduce him to a meme. We cannot pick and choose which parts of who Jesus is that we like and simply discard the rest. We take him for who he is and for what he has done. We simply bow before the King of kings and confess with all other followers of Jesus: Jesus is Lord—our Lord.

A friend recently posted an intriguing question online: if you did not need a paycheck, what would you do differently? How many of us work a job merely for the paycheck? If we each had enough money to last us the rest of our lives, we might do something different. As soon as I saw the question I knew my answer: nothing would change. I would continue to pour myself into the work God has given me to do, with no change. Well. If I had that kind of money, one thing would change: I’d have a brand new Cannondale SystemSix Hi-MOD carbon fiber bike with a SRAM Red eTap AXS groupset. In terms of my actual work, though, nothing would change. There’s a related question that’s a little harder for me to answer: if you knew how much time you had left, what would you change? I don’t mean knowing the actual date of your death, but if you knew the year, would you live differently in the time you have left? There was a man who did, and his life is worth a closer look.

Hezekiah was 25 years old when he became king of Judah. It was not a great time in Judah’s history. The northern kingdom of Israel had been conquered by Assyria, and the people taken into exile—never to return. Though God had warned the people through various prophets, we read in 2 Kings 17:

But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God.

2 Kings 17:14 ESV

Because of their refusal to repent and believe in the Lord, God cast them out of the land and they would never return. Judah, we’re told, wasn’t far behind. They embraced the idolatry of the northern kingdom. Then Hezekiah became king. We’re told in 2 Kings 18 that Hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He removed the high places where the people sacrificed. He cut down the Asherah that Judah had been worshiping. He even destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses had made in the wilderness because Judah had begun worshiping it and offering sacrifices to it. Fourteen years after he became king, however, Assyria showed up with a powerful army.

Rather than trust the Lord for victory, Hezekiah offered to pay tribute—a heavy tax—to Sennacherib, king of Assyria. This was in response to him conquering multiple cities of Judah. He raided the temple and the city of all the silver he could find, and even stripped the gold from the doors of the temple in order to pay off Sennacherib. Still, Sennacherib marched on Jerusalem. His emissary—the Rabshakeh—stood outside the walls of Jerusalem and spoke loudly in Hebrew, mocking the God of Israel. He told the men on the walls of all the other nations who claimed their gods could stop the Assyrian army. Every one of them fell. Not one of those gods could withstand the mighty Assyrian army, so he tells the men of Judah that there is no reason for them to think their God is any different. Then Hezekiah prayed.

And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said: “O LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O LORD our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone.”

2 Kings 19:15–19 ESV

Shortly after this the prophet Isaiah showed up to inform Hezekiah that God had heard his prayer. Sennacherib will not conquer Jerusalem. He says not a single arrow from the Assyrian army will come into the city. Not a single soldier will enter its walls. What is really striking to me is the sign that Isaiah tells him will prove to Hezekiah that the Lord will do this.

And this shall be the sign for you: this year eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same. Then in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

2 Kings 19:29 ESV

Isaiah says the sign that God will defeat the Assyrian army is this: Judah will eat whatever grains grew from last year’s harvest. During a harvest many grains would fall to the soil and be left. Even if they did not plant any grain, some of these kernels would grow the following year. They will eat the scraps again the second year. Finally, in the third year they will plant and harvest a full crop. What kind of sign is that!? The Assyrian army is surrounding the city right now and the proof that God will defeat them is that in three years they will harvest a crop? Like Hezekiah, we often want something a little more immediate.

When Hezekiah woke up in the morning he received the news that 185,000 Assyrian soldiers were dead. The angel of the Lord struck them down overnight, while Hezekiah was sleeping. Sennacherib took whatever remained of his army and went back to Nineveh. This is where you’d think the story was over. Incredible victory, right? In chapter 20 we’re told that Hezekiah became sick and was dying. Isaiah came to him and told him to get his house in order. He must prepare his kingdom and his household for life without him. Hezekiah prayed. What else could he do? In response to this God instructs Isaiah to tell him he would give Hezekiah fifteen years. He would live for another fifteen years.

The king of Babylon heard that Hezekiah had been sick so he sent a messenger to him with a gift. Assyria was the dominant superpower while Babylon was the up and coming superpower. Hezekiah was so impressed with himself, with the idea that the king of Babylon wanted to curry favor with him, that he began to show off. He showed the messengers his treasure house with its gold and silver and spices. All kinds of precious oils. He showed him his armory—his weapons of war. Surely Babylon was looking to Judah as an ally! Once again the prophet Isaiah came to him with a word from the Lord. This time it was not good. God said that Babylon would come and take all of it. Every last weapon, every last ounce of gold and silver. All of it. Even some of Hezekiah’s sons would be taken to Babylon. This was coming, he says. It was in the future. Here’s Hezekiah’s response:

Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?”

2 Kings 20:19 ESV

Hezekiah is not bothered by the news that Babylon would one day march on Jerusalem and raid the temple and the royal treasury and even take into captivity some of his own descendants. Can you imagine? God miraculously spares Jerusalem by single-handedly wiping out the mighty Assyrian army. Then God miraculously spares Hezekiah’s life after telling him to set his house in order, promising him another fifteen years of life. When he hears that his kingdom will be destroyed, he’s not bothered by it because it won’t happen during those fifteen years. In chapter 21 we read this chilling words:

Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “In Jerusalem will I put my name.”

2 Kings 20:21–21:4 ESV

Manasseh would reign over Judah 55 years. He did all the evil that led to Israel’s fall and destruction. He even put altars for false gods in the temple Solomon built. It was in response to Manasseh‘s sin that God declared he would destroy Judah as well. It was only a matter of time before Babylon would come and destroy the city and the temple and take its people into exile, because of the evil Manasseh did.

Did you catch how old he was when he became king? He was twelve years old. He was Hezekiah’s son. When Hezekiah died, Manasseh was only twelve, yet he became king. Did you catch that? God destroys Assyria. Hezekiah becomes sick and was dying so he prayed and God promised to spare him and give him fifteen years. Three years later Manasseh was born. Hezekiah had twelve years with his son who would be king. What did he do with that time? I’m not sure, but he did not set his house in order as God had instructed him. He did not spend those twelve years with Manasseh preparing him to be king by teaching him to love the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul. He did not teach Manasseh the law of Moses. He did not teach Manasseh to worship the Lord and him only. He merely enjoyed the peace and security in his days.

We can spend so much time living that we completely forget why we’re living. The truth is none of us knows how much time we have, but we know this: our time is limited. Some may have a few years while others may have a few decades. Regardless, hear God’s word to Hezekiah: “Set your house in order.” This may include making sure you have a will, but it’s so much more than that. Make sure you are living every moment for the reason you have life. Strive to live out Paul’s exhortation in 1 Corinthians:

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV

Whether you’re single or married, whether you have children or not, whether you are just beginning your career or it’s all but wrapped up, whether you enjoy your current job or you’d change it if you didn’t need a paycheck, your life has a purpose. That purpose is to know God and to reflect his glory to those around you.

It would be really easy to judge Hezekiah for wasting those fifteen years he was given. The reality is that he was given a total of 54 years to live for the Lord. While he did some great things—2 Kings says he did what was right in the sight of the Lord—the reality is he did the big things right. Where he failed was the little things God gave him to do, things like raising his son to be a wise and righteous king.

We must live our lives in full recognition that every moment of every day is given by God to us for his glory. Many of us work jobs that pay the bills. We haven’t bought into the idea of following our passions. I heard a guy say the other day that only rich people can truly follow their passions, for only they have the resources to do so! We work in order to meet our obligations, to provide for ourselves, for our families, for those in need. And some of us really do love the work we have. None of us has been given the task of raising up the next king, but the task we have been given is no less important. We must live our lives today in light of those who come tomorrow, living for the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Whatever your “job” is, whether you punch a time clock or draw a salary or earn a commission, whether you get up in the morning to piles of laundry and dirty diapers and a sink full of dishes that seemed to multiply over night, whether you have lots of free time after your career is over or you cannot wait for your next vacation, God has given you a task to do, and that task is actually greater than that of a king. That task is to reflect the glory of the King of kings by living a life that honors him in whatever life situation you find yourself.

You and I do not know how much time we have left, so let’s do this: let’s set our houses in order. Let’s live for Jesus with whatever time we do have. We may not know the moment of our final breath, but we can know that every breath between now and then will be spent living for the Lord.

One frequent charge against Christians in general and Protestants in particular is the existence of denominations. The implication is that if we were truly united we would all believe exactly the same stuff and think exactly the same way and even approach ministry in exactly the same form. The problem with this is this has never been true. There is a core set of beliefs that has been believed everywhere, always, and by all Christians. We describe these core beliefs as “orthodoxy”. Christian orthodoxy is proclaimed in the earliest creeds such as the Apostles’ Creed and even more, the Nicene Creed. These creeds emphasize our Trinitarian faith and expound the essential beliefs that mark one out as a true Christian.

From the beginning, however, there have been things that Christians have also believed, that are not part of that core of orthodoxy. These are the beliefs that tend to distinguish Christian denominations from one another. They are not denials of the core of orthodoxy. Rather, they are differences in our understanding of secondary issues. The real problem with differences of opinion on secondary matters is when we display the spirit of antichrist with them. It isn’t a problem that we have denominations. The real problem is when we descend into tribalism and display the spirit of antichrist. Let me explain.

About 30 years after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus the apostle Paul was in prison in Rome. He wrote a letter to the church at Philippi from prison. Before arriving in Rome Paul had written a letter to the Christians in Rome, in large part to exhort them to be united. They had formed local congregations along ethnic lines. Paul reminded them that the “gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). While the Jews had the advantage of having received the law, this did not make them any better off, for all have sinned and are in need of God’s saving grace (Romans 3:1–10). God’s righteousness is manifested apart from the law, for through faith a person is justified by God’s grace as a gift since God is the God of the nations and is not an ethnic God (Romans 3:21–30). The outcome of this reality is seen in Paul’s exhortation to embrace diversity in their local congregations:

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

Romans 15:5–7 ESV

One of the difficulties of people of diverse cultures worshiping together and living in community together is the varied practices. In Romans 14 Paul had to spend a great deal of time on the issue of meat. Jewish believers would avoid meat altogether since in the city of Rome most meat markets were connected to temples. That delicious ribeye you saw in the market one afternoon was probably offered in sacrifice to a Roman god that morning. Paul told them that false gods are nothing and so the meat was offered to nothing, so eat it. Some would struggle with this, as expected. When our cultural assumptions and practices are challenged, it is easy to get a bit riled up. This is why Paul wrote his letter. This brings us to his letter to the church at Philippi.

Paul is under house arrest in Rome. He tells the Philippian church that the gospel has been proclaimed “throughout the whole imperial guard” and many have become bold to proclaim the gospel because of Paul’s imprisonment (Philippians 1:13–14). Some, however, have used the occasion of Paul’s imprisonment to advance their own ideas and preferences. He writes,

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Philippians 1:15–18 ESV

The law of Moses was the covenant given at Mount Sinai. Moses referred to the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments on them as “the tablets of the covenant” (Deuteronomy 9:8). This covenant was replaced by the new covenant in Jesus’ blood (Hebrews 8:13). This means that Jews were free to continue to observe the law as a cultural expression, but followers of Jesus were not bound by this law. This is why Paul could declare in his letter to the Galatians that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; the only thing that matters if faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 5:6; 6:15). Circumcision was seen as a central marker of the law of Moses. Paul essentially declares it is now a cultural marker, not a marker of who is in the covenant.

New Testament scholar Gordon Fee argues that there were some in Rome who were preaching the true gospel of Jesus, but out of a partisan spirit. They weren’t the Judaizers Paul battled in Galatians. They weren’t saying that circumcision was a necessary step for salvation. However, they were emboldened by Paul’s imprisonment to preach the gospel so that they could bring their new converts into their congregations and increase the numbers of their tribe—their denomination, if you will. Paul knows this is why they were preaching, yet he was thrilled that Christ was still being preached. He wasn’t being preached for his sake, yet his gospel was being proclaimed.

He says they were preaching Christ “from envy and rivalry”. In chapter 2 of Philippians Paul gives that great exposition of the humility of Christ and his exaltation.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:3–11 ESV

Jesus is God in every way. When the Son of God came to earth as a human, he took on the form of a human and a servant and became obedient to the point of death. Paul tells the Philippian church to be like Jesus, to embrace the spirit of Christ by not looking out for their own interests. Jesus did not. He gave up his rights that he might bring blessing—salvation—to others. To live contrary to this is to embrace a spirit of anti-Christ. To live for one’s own interests is to live in a contrary spirit to that of Jesus. He says to do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit—even preach the gospel so as to merely increase your tribe.

When we see this sort of tribalism in our world today we can rejoice if Christ is being preached, but we must also lament the envy and rivalry that motivates the preaching of Christ. We can do little about others who preach out of selfish ambition but we can be sure that we resist the urge to preach Christ in this way. Here at New City we hold to the body of orthodoxy that has been handed down from the apostles themselves. In addition to these core beliefs we also believe some other things that not all Christians believe. We can disagree on these secondary matters and still acknowledge our shared faith in Christ.

The truth is unity is not seen in sameness. If every Christian believed exactly the same things and practiced our faith in exactly the same way and approached ministry in exactly the same form, we would not be demonstrating unity. That’s just sameness. Unity is seen in diversity. Unity is seen in holding to the Nicene Creed and recognizing that “We acknowledge one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins” may be understood somewhat differently by different groups of Christians. Do I think we have it right at New City? Yes, of course I do! I also recognize that we’re probably wrong on some points. To think anything else would be the height of arrogance!

What we must never do is preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in such a way that merely serves our end, that of growing our “tribe”. Of course we want our church to grow, but if we preach and teach with church growth as our main aim, we’re doing it wrong. If our aim is merely—or even primarily—growth in numbers our strategies will begin to change so as to bring about more of what we’re really aiming for. If growth is our main goal, we’re doing it out of envy and rivalry. The rivalry may not even be other churches! A pursuit of church growth may not be a rivalry with other churches. We may view our own church as the rival to be beaten! If growth in numbers is the goal, then our current size is the problem, a rival to be beaten! Are there churches that approach ministry with church growth as a main aim? Yes. Are they wrong in doing so? Yes. Should we rejoice that God is using them to proclaim the gospel of Jesus? Yes! We should also remember Paul’s warning to do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but to have the mind of Jesus. In our desire to grow as a church, what our true motivation must be is the glory of God in the face of Christ. If our proclamation of the gospel of Jesus results in growth in numbers, great! If it results in the growth in numbers of other churches, then great! It is not our tribe that matters, but Jesus Christ.

Because the church of Jesus is bigger than New City we seek ways to demonstrate this. We pray for our sister churches on Sunday mornings. On Good Friday this year we will be joined by the people of Fourth Reformed Church and Coit Community Church and Gracehill Church as we worship God together. We will share in communion together. What do an RCA church, a CRC church, and a PCA church have in common with New City? Jesus. We proclaim Jesus is Lord, and so do they. For this reason we will worship our Lord together.

New City will celebrate its eleventh birthday next month! This means we’re still a fairly young church and we have growing pains as we lack some of the long-established structure of older churches. That’s also an advantage, by the way. One of the great things about starting a new church is whenever anyone says, “We’ve never done it that way before”, they’re right! So this never holds us back.

As we’ve experienced growth over the last few years it has become clear that we don’t have much of a structure for integrating new folk as members. When we first established formal membership we had an entire sermon series about what it means to be the church and then had a large membership push. Over the years we’ve added folk here and there as they pursued membership and as new Christians have been baptized. Last week we had our very first membership class and this coming Saturday we will have another. The question that comes up inevitably is this: why should a person become a formal member of the church? It’s a good question.

The truth is there is no instruction in the New Testament telling us to formally join a church. There was no need to issue such a command during the time the New Testament was being written. This is due to the back drop of New Testament churches. We naturally view this from a Western Christian cultural perspective but if we can see church membership as they did in those very first churches a different understanding emerges.

All of the original followers of Jesus were Jews. Years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Gentiles—non-Jews—began hearing the gospel of Jesus and became followers of Jesus. They were then incorporated into the already established life of the churches as they were spreading around the Roman empire. The structure of these churches already existed. Because the original followers of Jesus were Jews, they had the synagogue as their model for churches. They saw themselves as faithful Jews who worshiped the one true God. As Christians they understood they were worshiping the same God they had always worshiped, only now they knew he took on human flesh, lived among us, was crucified, died, and was buried, and rose again on the third day. They continued gathering with their local synagogues on the Sabbath to worship the God they had long worshiped, and then they assembled again the next morning with all those who acknowledged the Messiah had come and conquered sin and death. Because the synagogue already had a formal membership, there was no need to have a separate membership for those who confessed Jesus is Lord; they were simply a subset of the synagogue membership.

In the synagogue they would recite the Shema (“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one…” from Deuteronomy 6:4–5) and then spend time praying. Various selections from the Old Testament would be read and a sermon would be taught from one of them. The service would end with a benediction. It should be no surprise, then, that when Christians assembled on Sunday morning in remembrance of the resurrection of Jesus they followed this basic format, with the addition of singing worship songs and celebrating the Lord’s Supper together.

Because of the existing structure of synagogue life these largely Jewish churches did not need a separate membership roll. However, hostility between non-Christian Jews and Christian Jews began to grow, particularly as more and more Gentiles became Christians. When Jews became Christians they already had a strong sense of morality so in terms of lifestyle little needed to be changed. Gentiles, however, were a very different story. They came from a polytheistic background and likely saw Jesus as one God among many, even if they thought it were preferable to worship him instead of, say, Zeus. Old habits—and thoughts—die hard! Sexual promiscuity was rampant in ancient Rome. Going to the local temple to visit temple prostitutes was simply a Saturday morning routine for many, much like going out for a round of golf. There simply was no sense of guilt or shame or embarrassment about it. It was part of life. Imagine telling a new Christian he had to give up his weekly round of golf in order to follow Jesus! This is what it was like for many new Christians entering into the church. This is part of what began to cause the rift between Christian and non-Christian Jews in the synagogue. By the second century the Sunday worship by Christians was largely separated from synagogue life.

The structures remained, however. The worship service still followed the basic format of Scripture reading, prayers, a sermon, singing worship songs, and celebrating communion. Now that membership in the synagogue was no longer simply understood for the ever-increasing ratio of Gentile believers to Jewish believers, the church began keeping its own records.

We see hints of this in Paul’s instruction to Timothy in his first letter. The church must care for its widows and Paul’s instructions clearly required some sort of membership roll:

Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.

1 Timothy 5:9–10 ESV

The expression “the wife of one husband” is literally “a one-man woman”. It’s a character quality, not an actual status, similar to the requirement that elders be one-woman men, whether married or not. An enrollable widow is an older woman who is faithful. The point is that in order to enroll a woman, there must be some sort of roll. The word Paul uses for “enroll” is only used once in the New Testament but in other literature of the time it clearly meant “selection for membership in a group”. In other words, within the broader list of members in that particular local church was a smaller group of widows. This wouldn’t be possible if the church did not have its own formal membership.

We see a similar implication in the metaphors used of the local church in Scripture. Paul told the Ephesians church they were “members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). In a very real sense they were brothers and sisters in Christ with ALL Christians, but the very idea of a household is that you belong to a specific household, not all households. If you disagree with that, try stopping at a random person’s house at supper time and announce that you’re home for supper. Peter describes the church as a flock of sheep (1 Peter 5:3). Sheep are all related in some way, yet each sheep knows its particular shepherd and its particular sheepfold. Yes, there is the broader world of sheep, yet each individual sheep belongs to a particular flock—a local church, if you will.

At our very first membership meeting last Saturday—and let me say, it was the greatest membership class we have ever had!—I was asked this question, as expected: why should we as Christians formally join a local church? I’ve heard it said that claiming to be a Christian while not belonging to a particular local church is like claiming to be married, but to no one in particular. What is really happening when a church receives a person as a formal member? It’s probably more profound than you might be thinking:

Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Matthew 18:18 ESV

In this text Jesus is actually teaching about church discipline, including the final step of removing a member from the church. What he’s saying in this verse is that the church’s decision is reflective of heaven’s decision. He says that when a church binds someone on earth, referring to excommunication from the church, it is demonstrating what has already been declared to be true in heaven. In other words, the binding on earth does not cause the binding in heaven; rather, it reveals the binding already in heaven. The flip side is also true: whatever the church looses on earth is revealing what has already been loosed in heaven. To put this in simpler terms that are relevant to our discussion, when the church receives a person as a member of that church, that church is declaring that he or she belongs to the Lord and is a true Christian with genuine faith in Jesus.

This formal and public declaration unlocks all the responsibilities the church has for its members. This is why New City has a membership covenant that begins with the church’s responsibility toward the individual member and then lists the individual member’s responsibilities to the church, to a specific local assembly of Jesus, not a brand or a formal administrative structure. Membership in a local church declares that we belong to you and you belong to us. Membership in the church is not simply a status. We must not treat membership in the church like we do membership at, say, Planet Fitness. You know the sort of membership I mean. You’re a member—technically. You go sometimes, if only to assuage your guilt. Yes, you know you should go more often and you feel bad when you don’t. Here’s the thing: no one at Planet Fitness cares if you show up or not. They’re a business and they have what they really want: your monthly membership fees. Making use of the benefits of membership is entirely up to you, however. This is not how membership in the local church functions.

If you don’t show up the whole church suffers. Part of our body is missing. If you are not committed to the church, the church is missing out on something. It’s not like an unused treadmill at the gym. Who cares if it gathers dust? The church is a living organism that depends on all its parts functioning together. This is driven home by Paul in his letter to the Christians in Rome:

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Romans 12:4–5 ESV

When the church declares that you are one of us, the church is thereby committing to loving you and caring for you as if you were a part of our own body—which you are. Membership matters because you matter. The real question here isn’t why you and I should join a local body of believers. The real question should be which body do I belong to and identity with as a fellow follower of Jesus? This ain’t Planet Fitness. This is the body of Christ. You should join us.