Why Be Church Member? | Ephesians 2:11-22

Intro

Good morning Church Family, how are y’all?

Everyone getting used to writing 23 on stuff? cool.

Dawg fans, how we feeling? Kinda nervous about tmr, I know we are good but I don’t know if we broke the curse or if we just put it on hiatus for a moment. Idk, it’ll be a good game tmr. It’ll be fun

As Some of you may or may not know but Pastor Randy is out this week because he just had hip replacement surgery. His surgery went well so he is recovering right now. Thank you church family for your prayers.

Also, Thank you church Family for letting me preach on Sunday mornings, I know I say it every time I preach on a Sunday, but I am grateful that you allow the student guy to preach. That is isn’t the case everywhere. So thank you!

Anyways, Church Family, this morning we are going to be talking about Church Family, gonna be talking about what it means to be apart of a Church Family, and why you should be a part of a church family.

So let’s take a quick survey, show of hands who has the perfect family, like whole extended family? nothing has every happened bad, no one has wronged you. there is no sense of family drama. show of hands?

No one. A lot of us probably have good families, I have a great family, rarely ever any problems, I won the lottery with mother-in-laws. But is it perfect? no, there is still some drama every now and then, but we move past it and its fine.

So, Church Family, is what we are going to be talking about this morning. What is a Church, what is church family, why be a part of a church family?

So Charles Spurgeon, the famous English Baptist preacher once said

“Give yourself to the church. For you have not found it perfect. If I had never joined a church till I had found one that was perfect, I should never have joined one at all; and the moment I did join it, if I had found one, I should have spoiled it, for it would not have been a perfect church after I had become a member of it.”

So church family.

if you have a bible go ahead and open up to Ephesians 2, if you brought a bible great, if not there is one right there in the pew for you. If you don’t have one at home take that one, it’s our gift to you.

So Ephesians 2:11-22 is pretty much where we are going to be this morning.

Context

So let me set the stage for what is going on here in Ephesians.

Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus which is a Roman town, there would have been both jewish and gentile folks in this church. Multi-cultural church there in Ephesus.

And basically Paul is telling them to not worry about if they were Jewish or Gentile.

Doesn’t matter, you are all united in Christ.

That theme is pretty present through out Ephesians.

There is a ton here in Ephesians, this book is theologically rich.

The book itself is like a streamlined version of Romans, ton of theology, all the theology of Romans just compact.

If Romans was a Ford Expedition this is the Ford Explorer, or for you Chevy guys, if Romans was a Chevy Suburban, it would be still be a Ford Explorer. Same bells and whistles, but you can park it easily.

But Paul is writing to tell the jews and the gentiles to get along for all these reasons and theological truths.

Christ is the unifier. Christ is the reason we have hope.

So lets get in to it.

Ephesians 2:11-22, lets read this together. But before we do that lets pray for our time in the word.

pray with me.

pray

Okay cool, read this with me, Ephesians 2:11-22, whole thing and then we are gonna work through it.

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Ephesians 2:11–22 ESV

11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 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, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Okay so we are gonna kinda work backwards in the text.

What is the Church?

So what is a church? thats the first question we need to answer.

And probably for some of us, even when we hear the word church we have some reactions. For some of us, the word church has happy memories associated with it, for me I grew up in church, i was raised by a church. The church was far more formative than anything else in my upbringing.

for some church might be thing you associate with a thing you used to be involved in, but nor so much anymore, every now and then. You know its like the ballpark you used to grow up playing at, you don’t go to it often anymore, but you’ve got a nephew you plays something there.

For others the church may not have happy memories associated with it, it may be a frustrating word to hear. You might have some church hurt, you might even see the church as not a great thing. You might wonder why we need the church when we can just follow Christ on our own. Church is a frustrating thing for you.

What ever category you find yourself in, the word church has some baggage, all of us feel different about the church.

So what is a church? We are talking about Church Family, whats a Church?

Let’s unpack that.

At DNow last year, Dr. Dew, our speaker, preached here on the body of Christ. and he raised a good question, what makes a church a church? We are a group of people in the same building, we have the same goal.

But Why isn’t a Walmart a church? Its a group of people, in a building with the same goal, get cheap groceries and if you’re in Macon, to not get murdered.

but we all know church and Walmart aren’t the same thing.

So what it is?

Look at verses 18 through 21, Ephesians 2:18-21

Ephesians 2:18–21 ESV

18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

So what is a church? A church is not founded on a goal. We might all have the same goal, but we aren’t here purely because of a goal. We are united here, not by a goal or similar mission, but a person.

18 and 19, we both have access in one spirit to the Father, no longer strangers and aliens but fellow saints and members of the house hold of God.

Look at what Paul is saying there, given the context. We like to read this and go, “great they’re all gonna be church members together, cool.” but look at how counter cultural this statement is, look at how against the status quo this is.

that is a thing we often forget — is that Christianity from it’s roots takes the status quo and turns it upside down. Oh the country doesn’t like our beliefs, great we are doing something right, it’s operating the way it was intended to.

Look at what Paul is saying. Hebrews and Gentiles are now in the same fam. Jewish people and Roman people. I don’t think we understand the cultural ramifications of that, and to be honest, I’m glad we don’t feel the weight of this verse in everyday life, it’s wild what he’s suggesting.

Paul is not talking about you know Alabama/Auburn Fans, or Georgia/Florida fans, or Tennessee and anyone.

He’s talking about two people groups who HATE each other. The Romans don’t even consider the Jewish people as the same class of human as themselves, and the Jewish people hate the Romans because they have taken over their country and tax the fool out of them.

This isn’t even Liberals and Conservatives, this is like Dick Cheney and Osama Bin Laden in the same church. Two vastly different people.

Wouldn’t you like to be in that Sunday School class? boy howdy.

But that’s what Paul is saying, Cheney, Bin Laden, that’s in the past. Romans, Jews, y’all aren’t divided now, you are now united.

And what united them? look at verse 20 and 21, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and that structure becomes a holy temple in the Lord.

and notice there, it says in the Lord, not for the Lord, but in the Lord. We are brought in to the family of the Lord. We aren’t first cousins of the lord, that sees everybody at Christmas, but we are sons and daughters that is daily in the family of the Lord.

So what’s a church? A church is a family joined together not by mission but by the person and work of Christ.

How is the Church Different

So if thats a church how is that different from any other organization. Cause you could say, “yeah joined together by christ but christ then gives you a mission”

So how are we different? What does make us different? Political parties can be joined by a person, look at Obama and the democrat party or Trump and the Republicans.

They united people together in to a group.

So what makes a church different? Look at verse 14-17,

Ephesians 2:14–17 ESV

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 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, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

So what makes the church different from say a political party or some other movement.

Look at what happens to the people that enter in to the family.

We are given peace through Christ because our hostility is gone, the biggest division we have is the wall of hostility we have between our sin sin nature and the holy righteousness of God.

This creates the relationship with God that we could not have attained on our own merits or our own abilities. The Law goes away in favor of following the person of Christ. We are given Christ’s righteousness.

All of our differences and prejudices and animosities are taken away.

Because the hostility betwen us and God is gone, the hostility between ourselves can be dealt with.

And the church is open to any and everyone, near and far the gospel is preached.

Again look at how staggering a statement is, Paul is taking the culture and flipping it on it’s head.

In Jewish context is mattered what tribe you came from, it also matter that you only hung out with other jews. In Roman society your family name was all that mattered, your goal was to honor and add to the legacy your family name had.

Roman boys would grow up and in their houses they would have a room devoted to everything their family had done through history. Basically a hall of fame for their family, their goal was to make it into the hall. If their ancestor was like a crazy warrior he would be in the hall.

If we had these today they might kinda look like your hunting trophy room. but it would have everything, you hit a home run in the state championship, there’s the ball. You shot some giant buck, there’s the head. Hall of fame.

Paul is saying here all of that doesn’t matter, you need your sin dealt with. — And it has been through the person and work of christ on the cross.

So how is the church different? Look at who all is welcomed to come in. Everyone, it doesn’t matter what your past life was like, who you were, what family you came from, what tribe you were in, the church is different because Christ levels us.

We talk about the US as being the great melting pot, all these cultures and backgrounds come together in in one pot melted down and it creates a gumbo.

Have you ever seen Gumbo made? When I was in New Orleans my buddy made gumbo, and it was awesome. in his gumbo he out everything in there, shrimp, crab chicken, sausage, okra, ham, whatever. But all of it would come together and make a gumbo, all the ingredients were in there but no of them stood out. It all went in to the pot, everything level.

That’s what the church should be, the church should be this melting pot of backgrounds, people from all different backgrounds, families, economic status, everything, people near and far.

Christ takes all these differences and levels them.

The gospel is right here, and it’s not for one people group but for everyone.

The Gospel of Christ takes your backgrounds, sin, short comings, faults, failures, addictions, hostilities, prejudices, The Gospel takes these things and makes them null. The Gospel takes who you were and makes you new. Christ meets you where you are but never leaves you there. You are created new and made whole.

So what is different about the church? The church is the crucible where we are made more like Christ. That is the Christian walk.

Following Christ produces steadfastness, it produces christlikeness, you are made more like your creator.

The difference is that you can’t stay exactly who you are in the Church, Christ through the family of the Church changes you.

That’s my story, that is your story, Church.

For me, the Lord through local church family one of the things that has been taken and chipped away is a serious anger problem. If I were to ask you who has seen me blackout rage angry, I’d wager a whole none of you have.

But Rewind about 10 years and ask my coworkers at Truett’s if they had ever seen me angry. They’d all raise their hands, they’d probably ask. “Can you be more specific? Which time?” It was ridiculous, I would lose it at the drop of a hat. Like fightin’ mad.

The Lord has taken that from me, imagine if I was like that working with Students, LAWD.

Through some serious discipleship in the church family, that was chipped away, it wasn’t over night. But I don’t have that anymore. I’m actually pretty chill. You can ask the staff what stresses me out, it ain’t much.

That’s what makes church family different. The Gospel is what makes the church different. We are the ones with peace, He is our hope.

Why Be a Church member? Why be in a church family.

So Church Family, let’s talk about it.

When Randy asked me to preach he had a vision for how to start the year, we want to look at why church, what makes the church the church, how should the church be organized, how should the church function. Who drives the vision of the Church , who carries out the vision of the church.

He wanted me to preach about Church membership. Answer the question of “Why be a church member?”

And so that is where I started in this sermon, “Why?” Why be a church member. What is the point of being one.

He said to look through our covenant and see what’s there for scripture, go in that direction.

So I started looking through it, seeing what was there. First I landed on Romans 12, but as you can see, we aren’t in Romans this morning, never fear though, we will be next week, but eventually I ended up in Ephesians 2.

And I kept wrestling with the words “Church Member” I didn’t find the words adequate.

Member feel very sterile. Very ridged. It’s not a bad word to use, we are members of the First Baptist Church of Gray. We aren’t going to change that.

But I do want to reorder the word member.

If you haven’t noticed i haven’t used the word member until now. What I have been saying is Church Family, because that is what we are, we are not members in a club. We are a family, and family is messy, there is a lot of people in this church family, and thats a great thing, but it’s messy, just like family, family is messy.

Member feels like you belong to a country club where you see each other once a week to play bridge, or what ever country club people do.

where family feels like you are daily doing life with each other.

You don’t have members in your home, you have family in your home. You don’t give keys to your house to fellow members, you give keys to your house to your family. When we have students in our home they aren’t just other members in the club, they’re family.

When you look through scripture what you don’t see is a group of people who get together once a week to worship and then go their separate ways, you see a family doing life together.

We say this phrase a lot here at FBC, You didn’t come to church, you are the church, so go and be the church. When we say it, we mean it, it’s a cool turn of phrase but if that’s all it was then we have missed the point. We are the church.

Throughout Scripture its church family that suffers together, it’s church family who were scared of the persecution of Rome. It was church family who rejoiced together. It was Church family that watched Christ be crucified, and it was Church family that ate with Him and rejoiced after he was Raised.

Family lives and hurts and celebrates together.

What was it a week ago we had tornado watches or this week, or something, but what does family do when the storms come. If a tornado watch is on are we gonna tell Price to hang in there in her crib? No, we are going to go to the basement together, we are going to pull her in there.

That’s what Church family does. When the storm comes, family gets together.

you don’t have to flip there but 1 Thess. sums this up.

1 Thessalonians 2:8 CSB

8 We cared so much for you that we were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.

So when you hear church member, we really want to you to think Church family. Family that does life together.

So Why be in a church family?

Look with me at verse 11-13 with me.

Ephesians 2:11–13 ESV

11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Why be in a church family, because you were bought by the blood and have been drawn to the saving grace of Christ. You can’t love Christ and not love his Bride.

Imagine if some one came up to me and was like man I really like you, we should be good friends, but your wife is just the worst. Can’t we just be friends?

I’d be taken back, and after he came to, i’d have to explain to him how that just doesn't work.

If you like me but hate my wife, we aren’t gonna be friends. and you don’t know me.

If you say you love God, say you love Christ but you can’t stand corporate worship, you don’t like organized religion, or don’t think you need the church then you are flat wrong. If you think that and believe you are saved, then you need to re think that as well.

Church Family, and I mean this as family, there are no lone wolf Christians, there are no Christians who can storm the gates of Hell by themselves.

if you think you can go by yourself then you will go by yourself because Christ ain’t going with you.

That’s not how the Church was set up, that is not the way Christ formed the church.

We were called to walk this life in community, we were designed to walk this life as family, not members. family everyday, not members only on Sunday.

Why be in a church family, because it is the only family that isn’t going to turn it’s back on you. If we seriously take to heart what it means to be church family, then we will be a family, it’ll be messy, it’ll be uncomfortable. Because that’s family, and in that tensions you grow. in That tension we see life change. In that tension Christ is glorified.

P2Christ

SO church family, what do we do with this? How can we take this with us.

This text is calling us church family to take hold of what it means to be church family.

To look at one another and say you are my brother, you are my sister. To view the church as a people that we can rely on, a people that will be there for one another, a people that will see each others faults and come together to edify one another.

So how do we start? not to preach next weeks sermon, but if you are already a Follower of Christ, this text is calling us to radical hospitality. It is calling us to be a radical family. This text is calling us to see one another as family. if you want a book to read go start in the Book Of Acts, or if you want, we have set up a little book stand out there in the foyer, grab the book “The Gospel comes with a house key” Read and see the world through that lens.

We will better follow Christ if we do this in community. If the church takes church membership as church family, this community will turn upside down. We will look different to the world we live in.

Church Family, the Lord loves us and has given us each other as family, let’s start the year off by looking at how we do church through the context of family, through the lens of family.

Y’all Pray with me.