Membership

Intro and scripture

Romans 12:1–9 NIV

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform 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. 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. 9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Pray.

It will probably not surprise you that the majority of Christians in America have a very low view of Church membership.

2022 State of Theology

This is a project that is completed every two years to serve the church and measuring the changes of secularism in our culture.

When asked:

“Every Christian has an obligation to join a local church”

49% Evangelicals strongly agree

19% somewhat agree

26% disagree or strongly disagree

6% unsure

That means 51% are somewhere between strongly disagreeing with this statement to indifferent to it.

I thought this was some what shocking to me. I figured it would be low, but goodness. So I did what any rational millennial would do, I posed the question on facebook. And goodness I got some responses, haha.

There were some beautiful responses of what the church has meant to people and how important it is. There was also crazy stories of abuse and wrongdoings at the hand of the church on people’s life. Stories of pain because of denominational failure and fighting, stories of severe loss and not experiencing christian community in the way it should be.

I found very quickly that people do not like the word obligated. Any insinuation of institutional demands on your life is treated with mistrust and skepticism.

Today as we begin a series on Covenant membership to the local church I want to push into some of these areas to consider they you should make a formal commitment to a local congregation.

I am sympathetic. I get reasons of caution. If I give you a message of Christian duty, you will smell it a mile away. Because you have experienced manipulation or unhealthy leadership or betrayal. There is racism, classism, division, fighting, sin in the church.

It is more than:

the bible says it

fellowship or community

And I think we are pushing up against a couple of things in our culture:

anti-institutional. “Organized religion” is something that I continued to hear. Lack of trust with the institution of the church. Not a younger generation thing either,

Hyper-individualism. Well what benefits? Can’t I be a Christian with out being a member somewhere? The only benefit is I get to serve on a committee....yay.

I want to approach this theologically.

So why should I join the local church?

Theology of the Kingdom of God

Theology of the body

Sanctification

Theology of the Kingdom of God

We start big here and then we zoom in. We as Christians believe that the kingdom of God has come on earth. Jesus in the incarnation brought heaven and earth together once more. He came for salvation but he also came as judgment against all powers and evil. This kingdom is evident as Jesus is on earth, poured out all the more at pentecost establishing the church and spreading throughout the world. The proclamation throughout Acts, is about this kingdom. And the church becomes the location where people are initiated into the kingdom of God and live under the reign of this kingdom of God as they anticipate the final day and as they grow in this new life in Christ.

The church is not the kingdom of God

The church is the witness of the kingdom, the doorway, and the formational force

Check out the church in Acts 2

Acts 2:42–47 NIV

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

This is not just good wholesome fellowship. They are practicing and anticipating the kingdom of God here.

Billy Abraham talks about the relationship of kingdom and church:

“God’s reign has begun; he has come in Jesus to bring judgment and liberation; he comes repeatedly in history in salvation and discipline; his rule is within reach of both individuals and nations; we can now enter its penultimate inauguration as we strive toward its full and final consummation. Yet there is more to come; what we experience now is a foretaste and foreshadowing of those ultimate acts of God that will bring history to its teleological denouement at the great and manifest day of the Lord, which is beyond literal description.”

“The primary task which the church sets itself in making members is to initiate people into the kingdom of God.”

“It is to ignore the fact that the church exists in and for service to the kingdom of which it originated. It is the church which is commissioned by the risen Lord to make disciples who will be initiated into the glorious reality of God’s reign on earth, a reality that is fully incarnate in Jesus Christ and made available through the work of the Holy Spirit. If it does not do this it is simply failing to be the church.”

Theology of the body

Then there is the theology of the body. All throughout the NT there is this analogy of the body of Christ. Christ is the head, members are connected to one another. This analogy talks about different gifts that are given and provided through members of the body and the call for communal service:

Romans 12:4–8 NIV

4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

There is a lot of....why should I join the church? What good is there for me? Or on the affirmative I heard things like, I find peace or accountability or whatever.

What is we are looking at it wrong. What if the body needs you? Your gifts, your passions, your burdens. What if the body is limping around because we want to stay online or anonymous in the room?

What if your passions, gifts, are not fully realized outside of the Christian community? We were made for community and made for one another.

The next couple of weeks we are looking a couple important places

Ephesians 4: We grow up into the one who is the head

1 Peter 1-2: Living stones built together around the cornerstone and that is where God is pleased to dwell.

We were made to be together.

Notice I am not passing out a pledge card right now. I am not saying this so that we can achieve some kind of financial comfortability to cover up the fact that we are not in the world making disciples. That’s what so many churches do. I am saying we are better together, because together we witness to the reign of the kingdom and the presence of God in the world.

Sanctification and means of Grace

This is like one of the top 5 wedding passages. Well not the prophesying stuff but the love part:

Romans 12:9–13 NIV

9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

How many of you are knocking this out of the park? Whenever couples chose this passage, in the ceremony I like to tell them the truth. Love is sincere but your not. You do lack zeal and spiritual fervor, you are not joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. You will choose yourself.

Married people in the room, tell me I am lying?!

That is because this is about God’s love in you. That is the only way it’s possible. This text builds on itself.

Surrender yourself as a living sacrifice, serve as a member of the body of Christ, and love will flow out of you.

You have come to know Christ, but there is more!!!!!

John Wesley:

“I was more convinced than ever that the preaching like an apostle, without joining together those that are awakened and training them up in the ways of God, is only begetting children for the murderer. How much preaching has there been for these twenty years all over Pembrokeshire! But no regular societies, no discipline, no order or connection. And the consequence is that nine in ten of those once awakened are now faster asleep than ever.”

I am not saying every church deserves your membership. I am not saying that church will be perfect or always this. I am not saying that church leaders will not disappoint you. But friends, if you are on your own I think there is a high probability that you are conforming to the patter of this world.

To the world’s loves, fears, anxieties, pursuits, ideologies.

I think it’s fascinating that we are worried about being “obligated” to do something, when Jesus calls us to come and die. Christian, to cross the threshold of faith is to now live a life poured out for others.

In the coming weeks we will look at membership vows. The core calling we have to one another. If you are not a member here, that is great. I am not obligating you to join. Do some window shopping. And if this isnt the place for you, I would gladly help you to find where you need to be. At the end of the day we are called to be in Christian community, not marginally, that isnt a witness to the world. And I should think if we are marginally committed then we are only marginally positioned to walk in the grace God has for us.

Let’s pray.