Membership Sunday

Call to Worship

L: Come, let us worship God who provides for us.

P: Even though we whine and complain, God hears our cries.

L: Lift your voices in praise, for God has come to comfort you.

P: Thanks be to God who forgives and heals our wounded souls.

First Reading: Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16

Second Reading: Philippians 2:1-13

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

8 And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Php 2:1–13.

Sermon

I am always impressed by Paul’s spirit as he wrote to the Philippians considering what was happening to him. At the time of this letter, Paul is in chains. Best case scenario, he was under something similar to house arrest. Worst case, he was in a prison and you don’t even want to imagine what that must have been like. Yet, even so, he writes to the church, “Rejoice in the Lord, always, and again I say, rejoice.”

But the church in Philippi, like many of the churches at the time was under attack. There were those who persecuted Christians. Who believed they were misleading people. Paul himself had at one time been one of those people, before he encountered Christ on the Damascus Road.

Not only was the church under attack from those outside , there were also issues inside the church. Now, these weren’t like some of the problems Paul had to address in some of the other churches but it was important enough that Paul dealt with it.

And from what Paul says in the verses we just read, the issue facing the church from the inside was a lack of unity. Because Paul tells them to make his joy complete by “being like minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.”

Membership:

Presentation of those wishing to join.

Let us affirm our faith by the reading of the Apostle’s Creed.

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth;

And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried;* the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic** church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

As members of this congregation, will you faithfully participate in its ministries by your prayers, your presence, your gifts, and your service?

If so, say, I will.

Members of the household of God,

I commend these persons to your love and care. Do all in your power to increase their faith, confirm their hope, and perfect them in love.

He goes even further and challenges them to have the mind of Christ and he describes what that means.

To live a life in which you consider others above yourselves. A life in which you seek to serve others rather than to be served. But this temptation continues still today. To be served rather than to serve. To get what I want regardless of what you want.

Communion