Week 5: What are the
Important Marks of a Healthy
Church?
1. Important vs. Essential
2. Drawing the Line
3. Biblical Understanding of Conversion
February 3, 2013
Class Outline
What is a Healthy Church
Week 1: The Church (What is a Healthy Church Chap. 1&2)
Week 2: What is the Church’s Purpose and Function

What is a Healthy Church Chap. 3&4 and Article II from
PBC Constitution
What are the “Essential” marks of a Healthy Church
Week 3: Essentials of a Healthy Church
 What is a Healthy Church Chap 5, 6 & 7
Week 4: What the Church Believes

Article III PBC Statement of Faith
What are the “Important” marks of a Healthy Church
Week 5: A Biblical Understanding of Conversion
What is a Healthy Church Chap. 8,
Week 6: A Biblical Understanding of Evangelism and
Church Membership Part 1.

What is a Healthy Church Chap. 9 and 10 and 9Marks
Church Membership book
Week 7: Church Membership and Discipline Part 2.

What is a Healthy Church Chap. 10, 11 and 9Marks Church
Membership book
Week 8: Biblical Discipleship and Church Leadership.

What is a Healthy Church Chap. 12 & 13
What is a Healthy Church Member
Week 9: A Healthy Church Member is an Expositional
Listener and Biblical Theologian.

What is a Healthy Church Member Chap. 1 & 2 and Listen
Up booklet
Week 10: A Healthy Church Member is Gospel Saturated and
Genuinely Converted.

What is a Healthy Church Member Chap. 3 & 4
Week 11: A Healthy Church Member is Biblical Evangelist and
a Committed Member.

What is a Healthy Church Member Chap. 5 & 6
Week 12: A Healthy Church Member Seeks Discipline and is a
Growing Disciple.

What is a Healthy Church Member Chap. 7 & 8
Week 13: A Healthy Church Member is a Humble Follower
and a Prayer Warrior.

What is a Healthy Church Member Chap. 9 & 10
Essential vs. Important
 Essential Marks of a Healthy Church:
 Expositional Preaching
 Biblical Theology
 Biblical Understanding of the Gospel
 Important Marks:
They have a direct effect
on how God’s word is
communicated to the
Church. And it is God’s
word that gives life
 Biblical Understanding of Conversion
 Biblical Understanding of Evangelism
 Biblical Understanding of Membership
 Biblical Church Discipline
 Biblical Discipleship and Growth
 Biblical Church Leadership
 Why the distinction?
Sanctification in the church’s
Life occurs slowly over time.
An issue with these marks
May not be a reason to
Leave the church
The Church
The People
Where and How do we Draw the Line?
 1st: Establish the essentials of the faith
 Trustworthy Sayings: (1 Tim. 1:15; 3:1; 4:9–10; 2 Tim. 2:11–13; Titus 3:4–8)
 Creedal Formulas: (1 Tim. 1:17; 2:5; 3:16; 6:15–16; Titus 2:11–15)
 Doctrines associated with false teaching (1 Tim. 1:8–11; 4:1–3; 2 Tim. 2:18;
Titus 1:16)
 Beliefs explicitly linked to the gospel and sound teaching. (1 Tim. 1:8–10;
2:8; 2 Tim. 3:14–17)
 God is glorious; we are sinners; and Jesus Christ is our Savior and God. Jesus
Christ is the Son of God and God in the flesh; He died and rose again; He
ascended into heaven; He is coming again. Salvation is by sovereign grace,
according to the converting power of the Holy Spirit, through faith, not
according to our works. The Scriptures are wholly inspired and true. Jesus
Christ saves us from sin, saves us for eternal life, and saves us unto holiness.
Any gospel that denies these essentials— or ignores them, marginalizes them,
leads people to doubt them, or is ashamed of them—is a different gospel.
Where and How do we Draw the Line?
 2nd Listen to the Communion of the Saints
 If we love Scripture, we will learn from the traditions of the church.
 1 Timothy 3:15 (ESV) if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in
the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and
buttress of the truth
 Those who wrote the ancient creeds, such as the Apostles’ Creed, the
Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedonian Definition, were not infallible, but
these creeds have served as effective guardrails, keeping God’s people on
the path of truth.
 3rd Distinguish between landing theology and launching theology
 Some doctrines represent different conclusions reached from basically the
same premises.
 Other doctrines are starting points that set us on a wildly different
trajectory.
Where and How do we Draw the Line?
 4th Distinguish between the explicit teaching of Scripture and the
application of scriptural principles.
 The Bible clearly teaches that parents train their children in the way of the
Lord. It is less clear about how to do that.
 Different Christians may reach different conclusions based on good
Christian principles.
 5th Distinguish between church existence and church health
 Lose some doctrines and you no longer have a church. Lose other doctrines
and your church is not everything it should be. The latter is still a problem
worth correcting, but you can exercise more patience and gentleness in
getting there.
 6th Avoid foolish controversies.
 This is another common theme in the Pastoral Epistles
(1 Tim. 1:4–6; 4:7; 6:4, 20; 2 Tim. 2:14, 16, 23; 4:4; Titus 1:14; 3:9).
Where and How do we Draw the Line?
 7th Allow for areas of disagreement, especially regarding “conversion
baggage.”
 Paul is most flexible when it comes to the traditions of new converts. He is
willing for Christians to be convinced in their own minds about certain days
and foods
 Romans 14: 5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while
another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his
own mind.
 Over, around, and in all these steps we must put on love—
love for God, love for neighbor, love for truth, and love for
the church.
Important Mark # 1: Biblical Conversion
Mark 1: 15: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand;
repent and believe in the gospel.”
 In its simplest terms, conversion equals repentance and faith.
 Repentance: is the activity of reviewing one's actions and feeling contrition
or regret for past wrongs. It involves a commitment to personal change and
resolving to live a more responsible and humane life.
 Faith: Biblical faith isn't believing against the evidence. Instead, faith is a
kind of knowing that results in action.
Conversion is God’s work in Us
Acts 11: 16-18: And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to
say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy
Spirit.’ 17 Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us
also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand
in God’s way?” 18 When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified
God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the
repentance that leads to life.”
Ephesians 2: 4-8: But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love
with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions,
made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly
places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the
surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For
by grace you have been saved through faith; and [c]that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God;
Bad Fruit and Good Fruit
 True conversion may or may not include an emotional experience, but
it will be evidenced in its fruit.
 Do lives give evidence of change?
 Are members interested in waging war against sin, even if they
stumble?
 Do they show a new interest in enjoying fellowship with Christians?
 Do they have new motives in spending time with non-Christians?
 Do they respond to trials differently, do they see them less as
somebody or something trying to get them and more like God
working on them in their lives?
Membership Covenant
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
I believe that there is one and only one living and true God eternally existing
in Three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – as revealed in Holy Scripture.
I believe that the books of the Old and New Testaments uniquely constitute
Holy Scripture, which are without error as originally written the Word of God
and reveal what we should believe and how we should live.
I acknowledge that I am a sinner by birth and practice, for which I justly
deserve God’s condemnation and wrath. I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ
died as a substitutionary sacrifice satisfying God’s just wrath on behalf of all
those who call upon him as Lord and Savior and that He rose bodily from the
dead for their justification and assurance of eternal life.
I have personally trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as my Lord and my Savior
I have read the constitution of this church, and I pledge, as a member of this
church, to share in its public worship of God, to submit to its teachings and
government, to serve the Lord through its ministries according to the gifts
God has given me, to attend congregational business meetings, to support this
church with financial offerings as the Lord enables, and to work for the well
being and unity of the people of this church.
Membership Covenant continued…
6. I desire to be in a relationship of mutual accountability with my brothers and
sisters in Christ. I understand that if I persist in a pattern of unrepentant sin,
this church may exercise church discipline for the purpose of restoring me to
full fellowship with the body of Christ.
7. I pledge to diligently and personally pursue spiritual growth in the grace and
knowledge of God and in that pursuit to use the opportunities that this church
provides through the instruction of God’s Word, through fellowship, and
through the celebration of the ordinances of the Church (baptism and the
Lord’s Supper). I likewise pledge to raise the children that God places in my
care in the faith of Christ and to diligently instruct God’s Word to them.