The Yoke

A couple of years ago, Ernst DeVries, one of the Ministry to Seafarers Chaplains, stopped by on his way back to BC. He dropped off some calendars for us. Somehow, we hit upon the topic of t-shirts and slogans and he mentioned one that bugged him. The Christian slogan, “No creed but Christ.” Usually such a slogan is proposed by people who do not like doctrine, they consider doctrine divisive. So, they try to simplify matters by suggesting we don’t need creeds, we just need Jesus.

There’s a problem though. If you say, “No creed but Christ,” which Christ are you talking about? Muslims revere Christ as a prophet, but not the son of God. Jehovah’s Witnesses also claim Christ, but do not worship him. Same with the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter Day Saints.

You see, the phrase, “no creed but Christ,” doesn’t really solve the problem, it merely creates new ones. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it is better to know what you believe and why you believe it. This is where doctrine is helpful. Doctrine helps us understand what we believe, what we mean when we confess Christ. Thus, we have the Apostle’s Creed, identifying Christ as someone we believe in, who was born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. On the third day he arose again from the dead and ascended into heaven... etc.

Doctrine is also useful in helping us figure out what we mean when we talk about the church. As we saw last evening service, the church has existed since the beginning, from Adam and Eve on. Though at times it may look as though the church is being overwhelmed, God faithfully preserves people for himself.

Tonight, we’re looking at article 28. The title of this article would probably rankle a few people, “The obligations of church members.” We don’t like to think in such a way. Who talks about obligations anymore? People need to be inspired, they need to have their felt needs met. We need to encourage people!

Obligations can sound onerous, heavy, tedious and burdensome. Nevertheless, there are some obligations in life that we hardly give another thought. What about the obligation to eat, or drink? And, after you’ve done that, what about using the bathroom—you know, washing your hands? What about the obligations we have in relationships? A new couple will fill all sorts of obligations, quite joyfully. A couple that has been married for years will fulfil obligations without even thinking about it.

So, how do we view this obligation that the confession speaks about? Certainly, many people consider it an onerous business. They treat it as an obligation, church attendance, community events, programs, etc. Other Christians look at the obligations some church provide, such as their programs, areas for service, etc.

We’re going to spend our time looking at the three sections of article 28. The first deals with why it is necessary to join the assembly and congregation, the second gets into the obligations individuals have toward the assembly and congregation and the third looks at what it means to exist in the world as a member of an assembly and a congregation.

Necessity of Membership

It is worth noting that the confession believes that God has ordained membership in the church. There are many passages which affirm this belief. Ephesians talks about being built together by the Holy Spirit to become a dwelling in which God lives (Eph. 2.22). In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul uses the human body to describe the different parts of Christ’s body. In that chapter he goes to some length to emphasise the importance of all parts. No one part may lord it over another, for all are under the head, who is Christ. Nor can one part say it is more important than another. Neither may a part of the body say that it is unimportant. All are being built together by the Holy Spirit; we need to trust in the spirit to lead us to a body of believers, to help us to commit ourselves to them, and to do what he has created us to do for the benefit of the body.

That the gathering, the assembly of the body of Christ is important is clear from the first paragraph, the first section of Art. 28. We believe that this holy assembly and congregation. We’ll just pause there for a second, do we believe that the church is a holy assembly? Do we view the church so highly? Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we can allow personal differences to cloud our opinions, we can think of it as merely a human invention. But we must remind ourselves that it is a holy assembly, a holy congregation, not because of anything we’ve done, but because of what Christ did, because he is the head, and we are the body. We’re not perfect, not by a long shot, but we’re a gathering pulled together by the Holy Spirit for better or for worse. So we should be careful in how we speak and think about the church, even the local body, and not just this one, but others in town too.

It is the gathering of those who are saved, there is no salvation apart from it. This too is something that sounds foreign to our ears. Why in our own denomination, we have an evangelism strategy called, “Don’t Invite them to Church.” Does this mean there’s some shame with church? Are we afraid to bring people here? Why? This is where salvation is! This is where God graciously reveals who he is through the preaching of His Word. This is where salvation is tangibly demonstrated in the sacraments of baptism and Lord’s Supper. This is the place the Holy Spirit is bringing those whom God has chosen.

So, we should be encouraging our neighbours to come. “Come with me to church, that’s where you can know who God is. Do you know what the Old Testament is about? It is about the one true God choosing a people to be his own. It is about a king and his kingdom. Do you want to be a part of the kingdom? Do you want to meet the king of kings? Do you want to receive grace and peace and love? Do you want to have hope not only for your eternal future, but for the present also? Then come with me to church. God is still bringing and gathering people to his kingdom. I think he’s inviting you. Will you come with me?”

There are times, legitimate times when people are not able to attend, to gather. Sometimes it is borne out of interpersonal relationships that have gone bad and need time to heal. Sometimes it has to do with a different kind of spiritual growth. But those are the exceptions which prove the rule. God gathers his people and he saves them. Sometimes, as in our OT lesson, he culls those who are not saved from among those who are. Sometimes the leaving is an indication of someone’s true heart, the heart known to God alone. We do not know as God knows. What we do know is that salvation is found only in the church, and we should encourage everyone to remain in, join in, or rejoin the fellowship there.

Obligations of Membership

So why does God obligate people to unite with the church? If we look at our New Testament lesson, we see something vital. Jesus invites people to come to him. Coming to church isn’t coming to the preacher, coming to friends, coming to a building. It is coming to Christ. Coming to church isn’t about a whole slew of rules and regulations, hoops for jumping through, or arbitrary laws laid down by human minds for the purpose of keeping the sheep calm. Church is about coming to Christ and finding soul rest, burden lifting, weariness removing. It is about losing the chains to sin and death, and receiving freedom and life. It is about willingly surrendering to Christ because the work he offers is indeed easy and light.

We learn what this work is through the instruction and discipline offered by the church. As such, this instruction is informative, identity building and the discipline is designed to encourage spiritual growth, not hamper it. The church has had issues in all these areas. The default position of humanity is to go back to slavery. Even when we have the best intentions at heart, we can enslave people by putting up rules and regulations which seem to have wisdom but do not (Col. 2.23).

For the last 9 weeks we’ve been studying Matthew 11.25-30. We’ve been looking at what it means to be yoked with Christ. What does Christ mean when he says that his burden is light? It is light because he is doing all the work. When we invite people to church, when they see what is truly happening, spiritually, then they will be saved. And being saved means being alive in Christ. This means that Christ lives in us, and that he lives through us. It means that we can do what Christ commands, we can fulfil his obligations because they come naturally. They become to us as natural as breathing, eating, drinking, etc.

For we see this is reinforced in the article itself. After it says we bend our necks to Christ’s yoke, we do that by serving to build one another up, according to the gifts God has given us as members of each other, in the same body. This is where we need to think beyond our natural individualism. We need to see one another as vitally important for our life and health. We need to see each other as arm, leg, eye, nose, ear. We all need each other. We serve one another, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. We help and console, and encourage and lift up.

So that covers the second point, the ways we serve one another, as we live under Christ, but what does that mean for our relationship to the world?

Church Membership & The World

Romans 12.1-2 says, “ Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” What does it mean to separate ourselves from the world?

Certainly it doesn’t mean we need to cease all connections with non-Christians. I mean, how can we invite people to church if we’re not allowed to associate with them? We’re not to create closed, gated, frozen chosen societies as the Old Order Mennonite and Hutterite and Amish have done.

What the article is getting at, what the Bible is talking about is living with Christ, living as Christ lives in us. That at certain times, on certain days, we separate ourselves from the hustle and bustle of the world to join in fellowship and worship with other believers. In our OT lesson, God had assembled his people, choosing for himself a nation. This nation separated herself from other nations, she worshipped the one true God, she engaged in practices which were different from the nations around her.

And when people tried to change, or to bring the world into God’s assembly, God dealt with those people harshly. As he dealt with Annanias and Sapphira. He was telling his people, as he told the church, that he is God, he will direct his worship, we cannot do what we think is best.

God, in his mercy has allowed a lot of variety in his church, in his worship. Therefore we rejoice with others who appreciate and love styles and stuff that is different from our loves and appreciations. But we are careful to consider what we do, and how we do it. Does it conform to God? Does it conform to the world?

Ever failed to appreciate something good until it is suddenly taken away? Like a good dog which was always underfoot, getting into everything, chewing shoes, but when suddenly struck by a car, the house is empty, the couch colder because it no longer snuggles up next to you? That’s what worship has become for many people in North America. We’ve become complacent in our freedom of worship. There are people literally dying to have what we have. They worship even though civil and royal authorities forbid it. And it costs and has cost them their lives. In fact, there are people who are bored with church and who deliberately chose not to attend.

Such a withdrawal, such choices to abstain is contrary to God’s ordinance, and a very dangerous place to put oneself into willingly. As members of Christ’s body, we can encourage and invite. We can share these words of warning. We can remind them of the good things, the necessary things of membership.

And for those who have not yet heard, or who have heard, or who have experienced something that wasn’t Christ’s body, we can invite them to come. Ours isn’t a perfect church, but God is here. God is active in our lives. We are growing, we are a vibrant church, committed to Christ and our community, the community within, and the communities outside the church. That’s our vision. Let’s live it, Christ in us, moulding us, moving us, encouraging us as the Spirit builds us together. Let’s make it a goal this week to invite someone to church. Amen.