Commitment to the Church

Belonging means committing

Every church has spheres of people. Like rings in a pond with the most inner ring being the smallest but most involved and committed people.

-The watch paint dry people.

-The next ring of involved and committed but doesn’t come to everything.

-Committed and around but picks and chooses

-Sort of involved, comes when it’s appealing

-Not really involved, you’ll only see me on the occasional Sunday.

-1 or 2x a year, I’ll show up.

-I go to that church… but not in the last few years.

But to really belong to something there has to be a level of commitment. We are people that are BUILT to BELONG. It’s in our DNA, it’s how God wired us.

-People will find other ways to scratch that itch: Sports groups, neighborhoods, bars, social clubs, nature groups, etc.

-If the only thing you belong to is Costco, you probably struggle with a deep sense of loneliness.

We are meant to belong. To places, to people, to communities, to families. Our lives are never meant to be built as an island. It’s impossible for one but damaging to your soul for another.

Yet - to belong means to do something that most of us struggle with… COMMIT. Dig in. Commit to a neighborhood. Commit to your family. Commit to a CHURCH and a people.

You literally can’t have belonging without commitment. It’s impossible and yet we often LONG for belonging but never want to COMMIT.

Let’s see what the Bible says about this…

Now the Bible functioned in a patricentrism society. Basically revolves around the “Father” of the family or as it was later adapted by Rome, revolving around the “Patron”

This is different than a patriarchal society which views MAN as the top. No matter who that man is or what he represents. This is more around structures that put the father figure at the front. Or the head of the household.

Now the household was different in those days than it is today so its hard to draw a direct line.

Two things that are major difference then THAN now.

1-Patron-Client system

Scholar James Papandrea describes it this way…. “Roman society functioned as a network of relationships and some of the most important relationships were those between people who were not equals. Virtually everyone in Roman culture had a patron, a person or organization who was more weathly and powerful, who could help out in times of need. Since life in Rome was precarious at best, and the economy of the empire was in a constant downward spiral, people needed a safety net, and that came in the form of a patron…Clients would in return provide political, moral, and group support for the patron in courts, voting, etc.” Caesar was considered the top patron of the society.

So the Patron was the head over your family but maybe wasn’t the head of the family. It was the father or the

2- Marriage was a foundational component in the first century

It was considered part of what made the society work. And of course, what dictated the household in the 1st century.

-singleness was considered a curse in many ways.

This all matters because the greatest source of belonging in the first century when the New Testament was being written in the time of Jesus was — familial and patronage.

Even the religion you practiced came from the system of the family. Who the patron worshiped, is who you worshipped. To go against that was big.

-Which is why we see Jesus’ words as so startling when he rebuilds the FAMILY around himself. Jesus being the patron but also the servant. Very Wild stuff from Jesus.

Which is also why commitment to the family was the most important thing. Commitment is how you belong and you played your role in the society.

It was a high commitment society to the relationships around you. Sure, not all of it was healthy or good, as you can clearly see. But it was a naturally committed society and it took a lot to break any sort of commitment.

And you were at great risk if you did… which is why the Bible speaks so much about caring for the widow and orphan. Without the care of others… death sentence or deep deep poverty.

Our culture is vastly different. We really have very few places we are expected to be committed to. In many ways, zero.

-Even families can be broken apart

-Work places - best way to get a promotion is to switch companies

But belonging comes from commitment to each other.

Now all this matters because we are going to enter into this world fully in Ephesians 5 but also dig into how Paul is talking about the CHURCH but using the commitment to the family as part of it.

Ephesians 5:21–33 NIV

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

This is a highly debated passage and some people find it very uncomfortable but it’s really not that scary especially when we have all the context, I just gave you.

Paul says in verse. 32 - this is about Christ and the Church. and then verse 33 - but also like husbands and wives you should actually love each other too.

In other words, Paul is talking about 2 major things here. One is his primary —- CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH

and secondary - Christian LIFE inside the family

Paul wants to find a way to describe our commitment to the church. To Christ. To each other. And he says, the thing that this first century Roman audience will grasp is the FAMILY UNIT.

So he says, I’ll rock with that.

How’s he start it? Ephesians 5:21 “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Commitment to the church means submitting to one another

Can we talk about church commitment? We live in a grass is greener culture. In a - if it’s too hard, leave/quit/walk away culture.

However, let’s be clear, there’s two types of commitment to the church that I’m talking about.

There’s the BIG C church commitment in which you are committed to being involved in the larger church. Like across countries and continents — Christians from all over the world.

-Different denominations and locations. But one Savior - Jesus.

Committing to the Big C church is saying you are going to be part of the body of believers no matter where life takes you, if you have to move, or if a local church is acting in a wrong way, or other things.

There’s also the commitment to the local church. The literal church gathering of a local group of people around Christ. For you all, that’s Praise Covenant.

This is also an important commitment. For you really can’t belong to the BIG C without being part of one of the local churches.

But this is also harder and more work because now you are in the trenches with these people. Life on life. Dealing with people, programs, leaders, policies, etc. FACE TO FACE.

And yet - the church, even the local church, is a family. It shouldn’t be easy to walk away from it. There should be big reasons for it.

And if you are only loosely connected, then you need to find a way to wade a little deeper in the waters.

For Belonging to something means commitment.

Or as Ephesians 5 said - submitting to one another OUT OF reverence for Christ.

We do it cause Christ has asked it of us. And listen man or woman, we all submit to each other.

Christ is the head of the church

Ephesians 5:23–24 “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

I really don’t want to get into the doctrinal concepts here. For this verse has a lot going on. Lots of scholars continue to debate the “submission” here.

Submit - we get hung up here. In our culture submit is this idea of one bossy person with all these demands and another submissive person rolling over.

But submit is the Christian call. We all do it to one another. And what’s that mean? Again it’s putting the NEEDS of others above our own.

As theologian and pastor Greg Boyd once said - “"Love is about ascribing worth to another at cost to yourself. Judgment ascribes worth to yourself at cost to another."

So submission - is the pathway of a Christ follower.

As a wife, you don’t get an exception to this.

This says something about the husband, right? That Paul would have to include in submission specifically, towards husbands. Like wives are thinking, “not that jerk”.

Love - the desiring the good of another.

Submission is allowing the good of the other to surpass the desires of yourself.

-Husbands. Don’t get too excited yet.

But once again - Paul is using a Roman HOUSEHOLD concept to talk about the church. The church is to recognize that Christ is the head of the church. And similar to the culture in that day where wives would follow their husbands who followed their patrons.

Paul says - this is like the church where everyone. Literally everyone is submitting to each other in this way but with CHRIST as the head. We all submit to CHRIST. Our commitment and belonging comes from Christ as the HEAD.

Center-set.

We need to keep going because the call to the husband is even more aggressive by Paul than what he said to the wife.

To be the HEAD means to live sacrificially

Ephesians 5:25–29 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—”

Once again, I don’t want to get too lost in the family structure because it’s a full sermon on it’s own but here’s quick idea.

Husbands are to LOVE not just SUBMIT but to LOVE (which is a BIGGER ASK).

Just as Christ loved the church and GAVE himself up for her

Elevating her and sacrificing for her.

This is radical. Unconventional, not really ever seen.

Selfishness has no place in Christ, it has no place in a husband.

Lording over has no place in Christ, it has no place in a husband.

Just as Christ…

How is it lived?

V. 28-32

As your own body. As you feed yourself and care for yourself, Jesus does that for his church. Husbands do that for their wives.

Husband and wife are ONE. (Gen. 2:24) This is a great mystery. That 2 are one. That Jesus is one with his Church. That a wife is one with her husband.

V. 33

The radical shift is towards the husband. Not proclaiming the husband.

Selfishness has no place in a marriage, on either side.

Love is… Love is not…

Re-enacting the gospel story.

What Paul is saying here about the church though is even more startling than what he’s telling the husbands. He’s actually recreating a teaching from JESUS who bent down and washed his disciples feet.

He then said, “now you go do this for one another!”

To belong to each other to commit to each other is to LIVE sacrificially towards one another as Christ did for us!

The leaders actually model this first and foremost like the husbands in the Roman household should.

The Church will join together like a NEW FAMILY

Ephesians 5:30–32 “for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

He said so just like in marriage when a man leave his family, his previous head with the father at the top to start a new family in the Roman world… so this is what it looks like for Christians to unite with each other as the church.

Not in a romantic sense but in a “NEW FAMILY” sort of sense. We now band together and form a new family. With brothers and sisters, mothers, daughters, grandmas, grandpas, uncles, etc.

To belong to the church means to commit to the church. If you don’t feel like you belong, than maybe you aren’t committed.

What does it mean to connect to each other? Commit to one another?

What does belonging actually look like?

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How does the concept of commitment influence your understanding of belonging in the church?

In what ways can we cultivate deeper commitments within our church community?

How does understanding the patron-client relationship of the early church reshape your view of church leadership and community?

What role does submission play in fostering true belonging among church members?

How can we ensure that our commitment to the church reflects the love of Christ for His church?

What actions can you take this week to deepen your commitment to your local church?

How can you practically demonstrate love for others in your church community, as outlined in Ephesians 5?

In what areas of your life do you feel called to commit more deeply, and how might that affect your church involvement?

Reflecting on the different levels of church involvement mentioned, where do you currently find yourself and where do you desire to be?

How can your personal relationships within the church model the selflessness that Paul describes in Ephesians 5?