Seasoned Members Class (part 1)

Those of you who have joined BBC in somewhat recent years not looking over here I've been teaching the new members class now for actually I don't even know I was trying to figure out how long it's been.

It's been I think at least five years now. Ever since Pastor Harry Left I've been teaching the new members class and so those of you who've joined recently you you got to experience. You you you know what?

It's like going through my class. I teach this four session class on we go over the fine points of What makes a good church about the importance of things like a statement of faith about the importance of doctrine?

About church government church discipline and my. My assertion every time I say this at the in the first class every time when we start is I say look I'm gonna spend the first three sessions only telling you about what makes for a good church and I'm doing it kind of as a wager which I know I probably shouldn't be wagering in church.

But I'm doing it as a wager and that My wager is that if I spend all that time explaining to you what I think makes a good church when I finally get to Session four and I tell you about BBC specifically you will agree that this is a good church.

Right and. And the reason I do that is also because while I hope that anyone who comes and joins as a member here stays forever I'm realistic. I realize that that's not going to be the case and I want to equip people to be ready.

That if when God if goal if God calls them away to another Place another location then they have to find a new church that they're equipped for finding a good new church someday as well. All right, well my time this summer as the teacher of this class is gonna be spread out a bit.

I'm gonna be sort of the interlude the palate cleanser between other teachers and. So each time that I stand before you what I'm going to do is be delivering a refresher course on being a member at BBC.

So for those of you who snuck in here before I started teaching well consider that to be a. You're getting a peek into what you missed out on. And and while I call it just a refresher There's there's really so much new material here that it's more like the advanced level course and membership.

Okay, I wanted to call it the old members class, but Karen said that that might be kind of insulting. So we're gonna call it the seasoned members class. All right, so Congratulations. Welcome everyone to seasoned members class.

The First Church in Acts 2

Session one. All right, so we're gonna turn today to Acts chapter 2. We're gonna start in Acts chapter 2 Verses 42 to 47 and we're gonna take a peek at the first Church the very first Church. What happens at the beginning of Acts 2 anybody remember.

Let's get those Interactivity juices flowing mark Pentecost right. Pentecost happens at the beginning of Acts 2 right, we hear of the Holy Spirit coming and Indwelling in the Apostles and then Peter gives his very famous sermon and how many people are converted?

Does God use Peter's sermon to convert? 5 ,000 right and there it is. Boom the first church. Okay, there's the first New Testament Church and we're gonna see I sorry 3 ,000 not 5 ,000 and we're gonna see here verses 42 to 47.

What those 3 ,000 people start doing as soon as they become the first church? Okay. Who can read for me Acts 42 to 47? So there are six things happening here that this church is doing together. All right, six things they're doing together number one they are Studying together right?

They are devoting themselves to the Apostles teaching. They are studying the word together. Another thing they are doing is they are Sticking together. That's number two. They're sticking together, right?

We see them. There's the fellowship. There's the breaking of bread. And the breaking of bread means they're literally having meals with one another All right, and they're they're hanging out with each other.

They're spending their free time with one another. There's having fellowship. Number three is they are praying. Together they're praying together. We see in the print right that they're together with the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Number four they're being shepherded. They're being shepherded by leadership. There's many signs and wonders being done through the Apostles. They're listening not just to any teaching but to the Apostles Teaching All right, so they're being shepherded by a leadership and.

Then number five and number six. They have concern for those number five inside the church and number six concern for those outside the church. All right. We see a number we see that they have all. The all who believed were together and had all things in common.

They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need so taking care of each other. And at the end verse 47, it says that they praising God and they're having favor with all the people.

Right their action their conduct as a local church as the first church was impressive. To those around them. It was attractive to those around them. They actually found favor with everyone in Jerusalem.

So, let's start for a moment, so there's the six studying together sticking together praying together shepherded together. Taking care of each other and take and and having a concern even for those outside of the church.

So I'm going to start here with a moment of self-reflection. Let's ask ourselves How we Bethlehem Bible Church do these six things? Okay, so I want to ask who can give me a positive example of The first one how we study the word together.

Michael. And home group. All right, great. Can you say a little bit more about that? Yeah, true. Yeah home group probably touches a lot of the others, but we'll stick with the as an example of studying the word together.

We get together. There's sort of a Structured, you know, most of the home groups are going through a book. A book of the Bible or maybe they're studying a Christian book together, right like my home group.

We've done both Over the time and so we're studying the word together and learning it together. Okay, that's great. All right, how about sticking together? How do we stick together? Fellowship and eating come on.

Andrew yep, right. Yes. Yeah. We do all like to eat. Yes. There is I used to be part of a Baptist Church and there was an old joke that the the the lost Baptist distinct Baptist distinctive was eating buffet eating.

Right, so yes, so we get together on weekends, right we we socialize with those of the church of the church family. So that's a really great one. All right, number three. How do we? Praying together. What's a good example of praying together?

Yes. Yes, that's a really excellent one, right? We have the prayer requests on BBC announced if you're not on BBC announced. Please get on it so that you can get those prayer requests right. Yeah, Andrew.

Yep. Yep. Every morning every Sunday morning at 830 in that back corner room 815 sorry. See, that's how good We have we have prayer we pray for the service in particular. That's about to come but also just we Take time to pray for all the various prayer requests that we can think of that have come out over the past Week or few weeks on our BBC announced.

Yeah, Gary. Yes, and home group. Also, of course is a great opportunity for Being able to share prayer requests with each other right and pray for each other. Okay. Being shepherded. Can I get a positive example, please?

Right pastor Cooley. Positive examples only yes. Yep. Yes. Yeah that we definitely here at our church. We put a special emphasis on training that the the the elders put a special emphasis on training the men of the church tend to also be Leaders of their ministries their families, you know their wives, right?

So there's a there's sort of that trickle-down of good leadership all throughout right. Okay, how about concern for those in the church concern for those in the church Andrew go ahead. Yep. Seasoned members, right?

Exactly. We when new members join we have them stand up here and my read-off part of the covenant, right? And what one of the main parts about that is that we talk about coming alongside one another All right to care for one another.

How about like a really concrete example of something we do There's a great one the moving ministry. Yep. Yep. Yep and Anitra and Meals, yep. That's another big one. Yeah, Janet. I completely agree with you.

Yes church discipline is caring for the body and when we do it We are taking care of one another and actually I'm going to talk a little bit more about that later. So that's a good one. Nursery and preschool and why is that?

Being such a blessing for others right and we're sharing that the the the response about I want to call it a burden because it's Really fun to take care of kids the the responsibility right where so we're kind of rotating through of the parents and some parents are in the back and the other parents are able To come out here and participate in the service, right?

Yep. All right, and then the last one is concern for those outside the church evangelizing right, of course. That's important Gary. The nursing home ministry is a really great one yet. We go and we try to be a blessing to them, right?

We we have the singing sometimes the kids go and I remember taking my kids when they were really little we did like a little Christmas pageant at the nursing home one time. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, yes, that's yes we Supporting our missionaries, right?

There's both an indirect there in like we support the missionaries who then are ministering and being a blessing to People that will never even meet in person but also just being directly being a blessing and help to our missionaries right and sometimes we do things like organized care packages and Sending love notes to them and things like that right to encourage them.

All right, so that's great so that's there's there's a Sort of marching orders right for the local church. Studying the word together sticking together praying together being shepherded by a leadership.

Having concern for those inside the church and having concern for those outside of the church. So I tell you this morning about the three P's that's gonna be the rest of our outline this morning the three P's of Church, okay of a local of a good local church and they are philosophy.

People and program. Philosophy people and program and they are in that order and that's really important. It's really important that they are in that order and I'll explain as I go but first is philosophy.

The Philosophy of a Good Local Church

Philosophy a philosophy. I'm gonna define it as it's the core of values that govern our ministries. Any of the core of values that govern our ministries and so as such a church philosophy represents the church's priorities and shapes.

Virtually all if not all of our ministry decisions. So if someone asked you what is BBC's philosophy, what would you answer pastor? She's not allowed to answer. This isn't a test there isn't exactly a come perfectly right answer here, but okay, this is Susan you're holding up the bulletin why?

Him we proclaim right? That's right. We've got it printed right there on the front of the bulletin, right? Kind of a good mission statement there, right of what we're about. Anybody else. What would you say is BBC's philosophy mark, right?

Yep our statement of faith, right our statement of faith kind of Encompasses it that it certainly lays out all the doctrine to which we you know. A scribe and a statement of faith is very good in that it makes it very clear.

Not just it both what we believe and also what we do not. Believe right what we stand for and what we do not stand for so in a way. It's a it separates. It's it provides clear boundary and definition for a local church a good statement of faith.

Any other thoughts. Someone just said to you like you know what is what's BBC about there? You know they're a visitor. They're Thinking about coming to church. Okay, yep. Yep, elder. That's sort of the the the church government how we organize the church government.

The word is peach boldly in line ballet, and what what makes that important? Why is that important? Why do we do it line by line? It's good, but look. What's the reason for that and we get the whole message right the whole message we don't Shy away from the hard stuff in fact usually when we get to the hard stuff.

We double down and dig deeper right we end up on that passage for six months. Yeah, Becky yeah. Yeah. Yes, I'm having a strong emphasis on building strong families right each Individual family is a core component of the church and a church is only going to be as strong as how strong its Individual families are and so we're talking about building up strong families right whether that's a family of one of two or ten.

Is that the biggest one we've got okay? Yes, Bev. Yes, right. The one about equipping the Saints to do the work of ministry. And I I'm really glad you mentioned that one because if of all the things we've said I think That one on this hang all the other things we just said.

Right we do all those things because we want to equip Everyone to be able to do the work of the ministry right we're here to grow. Disciples grow and mature disciples in Christ. We're saying that if we if people are the more people are Christ like.

Right the more they're growing the more Christ like they are the more they'll be able to serve. And to love one another and bring glory to God right which brings me to that which is our clear purpose our clear purpose.

Sorry our clear purpose is that's how clear it is. Sola Deo Gloria right. I need three readers can I have three verse readers, please? Mark could you read first Corinthians 1031? Becky could you read Psalm 96 one to three?

And Jonathan please read Ecclesiastes 1213 this of course very famous comes at the end of a Section in which Paul is specifically dealing with eating and drinking and the question of eating meat sacrifice with idols.

So that's why it starts out with this business about eat or drink. But really if you take the the point of that passage and you extend it into as you ought to into all things of life as He concludes all things right for the glory of God.

Becky. Proclamation and we bring glory to God when we proclaim to the whole world what he has done and How great he is when we tell about God and about what he has done. All right, and last Ecclesiastes 1213.

There you go the whole duty of man to fear God and to keep his commandments that's how we bring glory to God and so that Segues into my next thing which is that we as a church part of our philosophy is to follow the greatest commandments.

What are the greatest commandments not the ten? What's the greatest commandments Gary? There you go. Love God with your whole heart mind soul and strength and love God love your neighbor as yourself. Right though on this are the two.

Hang all the law and the prophets Jesus said and if you if you think deeply about that you'll realize that every other command in the Bible Derives from those two. Right we say when there's a command to not worship idols.

That's Loving God, right? You should love God if you would just love God, right? I wouldn't have to tell you to not Worship idols, it's almost like every other commandment not just derived, but it's almost like it's an exposition of those two commandments.

Do not steal. Well, if you were loving your neighbor, you would never want to steal from them. Right, you'd realize that I should not steal from them. So stealing is just simply an extent or not stealing.

It's just simply an extension of loving your neighbor. Okay, and then lastly what I'll say about philosophy is that we We have a function a primary function and we already said it it's to proclaim God's Word.

And we start with Proclaiming God's Word and the reason we start there. John MacArthur has a great quote. He says we wouldn't know how to worship how to pray how to evangelize disciple shepherd train or serve.

Unless we know what the Word of God says. All right, we could we could make it up. We could pretend like we know what we should do and just go off and do it. But we should start with we need to start with what God says about every one of those things.

So that we would know how to do it and how to do it rightly. All right, so that's philosophy. Okay, so philosophy has to come first because it's the core. It's the underpinning of everything else that we do.

But then next comes people. Number two is people and the reason people come next is because people are the fruit of the ministry. I just said the philosophy, you know as Bev put it wait, we're we're trying to equip the Saints.

So thus mature Disciples in Christ are the fruit of what we're trying to do here, right the fruit of our ministry. And That brings us back to Acts chapter 2 verses 42 and 47 because this is all about what the people are doing with one another and for one another and how we are acting and behaving and conducting ourselves Christ like if you're gonna pick some Adjectives if you saw a church that was doing all these things.

What kind of what kind of adjectives would you say would you describe that church as? Obedient that's a great one. Heavenly. Oh, I like that. Anybody else about graceful Right hospitable Blessed Right.

They're doing what they're supposed to do and somebody said a minute ago that like when we. You know are the moving ministry right that that you certainly, you know when you were receiving The help of the moving ministry you're getting a blessing but those of us who've done it also would say it's such a blessing.

To us to get to serve right. And I'd say that's true of any experience that we do here if you really allow yourself to think about it and reflect on it. You recognize that? Getting to do the serving. Very often you are you find yourself feeling more blessed than you think you're actually blessing someone else.

You almost start to feel guilty. I'm getting more blessing out of this than they are above. Yeah. Yep, it's ridiculous. Correct? Yes that from the outside. It looks it it does it looks ridiculous. It looks surpassing understanding right supernatural.

How are you guys able to act like this? I can't believe that you do all that for each other. Right, yeah. And that's great because I was gonna mention it later. But John's 1335 Jesus said by this all people know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another.

Right, that's how we're supposed to be known to the outside world. That's how the world's supposed to notice something different about us is. How much we love one another? How much we take care of one another.

I think another one to go back another adjective I'll add is that they are honest. They're open with one another. We're talking about needs here and fulfilling needs and. They're gathering. Right, they're gathering.

And so the togetherness if I had to sum it all up is that the togetherness of this healthy church. These six points of togetherness. They are they need to be physical emotional and spiritual. Right, a lot of times people just sort of think of church wrongly as Spiritual togetherness and only spiritual togetherness, but that's not God's intention.

God's design for the local church is for physical and emotional togetherness as well for unity at all levels. What relationship word does God use to describe his relationship to us? What does he tell us to call him?

Father. What does he tell us to call other people in the church? Brother and sister. Right. Why we're family. Because we're family. God doesn't use family terms in the Bible lightly. He wants us to go to when he says call me father.

He wants you to think of the Best earth example of an earthly father you can possibly think of and then say and guess what I'm even better and when he wants you to think of all your brothers and sisters in Christ and think of all the needs and all the ways that brothers and sisters.

Family brothers and sisters are always there for each other and they and he says and you do likewise and do better. Do deeper remember when Jesus Was teaching in a very crowded place and his mother and his brothers came to visit.

Somebody knocks on the door like signals Jesus from the back. Right and trying to get his attention and saying hey your mom and your brothers are here. What does he say? Yeah, and then he points to the whole crowd and he says these are my brothers and sisters right.

And he's not really saying that to demean or or lower his relationship with his earthly family, but to elevate the relationship he has with With the church, I think I stand on safe ground when I say that God cares Very much about developing and deepening our relationship with him.

Everybody agree with me on that? Okay. When he was creating the world and everything in it He already had a plan for ultimate good. Yes, everybody's good. Keep head nodding good. You know when I read the Psalms, for example I I can't help but think that when sheep were created or when God designed and created sheep I think the perhaps the primary purpose For them was to be ill an illustration to us.

About what we are like as wayward sinners and about what he is like as our shepherd. Yes, they provide wool, but I kind of feel like that's like a happy secondary. Right there there so that God could then write about them in the Bible and call us sheep.

Who are gone astray and we could look at real sheep and be like wow. Yeah, that is us. Right and. So in the same way, I think I'm also standing on safe ground when I say that he designed marriage. To look like our relationship to Christ.

He designed the family to look like our relationship to fellow Christians. These were not afterthoughts of God. He didn't like it didn't like suddenly occur to him like oh, hey. You know. It's a good analogy for how you should behave in the local churches like be like you're how you are with your brothers and sisters.

No, no. Completely the other way around. Like family turn to Romans 13. We'll park here I think for the rest of the time this morning. Romans 13 verses 9 and 10. Sorry, actually 8 9 and 10 you can read Romans 13 8 9 and 10.

Jerry go for it. All right. So there Paul just explained far better than I was trying to do earlier about how all All these other commandments hang on the idea of loving your neighbor. All right. Now here obviously Paul's referring to the moral law.

Okay, and let me start by thinking let's think of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Okay, who can give me the cliffnotes version of a parable of parable of the Good Samaritan? Walks by yep leaves him on the roadside.

Yep, right because it's all it's all prompted by a lawyer coming to Jesus and asking who's well. Who is my neighbor? The one thing that really struck when I was reading that again one thing that really struck me about that.

Not only does he leave money with the innkeeper. He even tells the innkeeper and if He incurs more expenses than this I'll come back and pay. Right, like he's good willing to come. I mean, I don't know is he planning on traveling back that way or not, right?

Like he's willing to come all those circle back and make sure That you know, the innkeeper is made whole that the innkeeper doesn't incur any debt over this. Right because of what he wants to do. He want he so wants to take care of this person, right?

And as Mark was saying the reason it was the most surprising of the choices is because The Jews and the Samaritans were like this with each other. Right, they were kind of like rival countries at that time.

They hated each other. They had conflicting ideas of of Who God was how to properly worship him, right? Now from all that who are we to conclude our our neighbors? Right, I mean, I don't expect to meet any Samaritans in my lifetime.

They do still exist by the way, you can look it up, but they but we'll move along quick. But you know, I don't expect to meet any so so who am I to conclude our my neighbor? Who God has in our path? Right, so literally anyone everyone any and everyone right.

So thus for sure we should recognize here that when Paul Obviously is referring to the moral law of love your neighbor as yourself. But he's talking about an obligation that we love really any and all people who come into our life that God brings into our life.

But I'm also reminded as I already quoted of John 1335 where he said by this all people will know that you're my disciples if you have love for one another and I'm Thinking to myself we better really be loving our church family.

Okay. Yes, we should love all. But we really better be loving our church family. And so if someone asks you now New member comes along and says could you define love for me? What does that mean? How am I supposed to love?

My brothers and sisters in this church. What would you say? Putting others before ourselves. Pretty good. I don't know if we can improve on that. Thanks, Becky. Yeah, John Right caring for their physical spiritual emotional needs.

I mean, you're all smart you you knew not to say. Oh, well to have you know, happy warm feelings towards them. Right because love biblical love is action. It's a verb. Right, you got to do stuff in order to show love how I Often have said my kind of favorite pithy saying here is that biblical love is when you are the least important person in your life.

When you are the least important person in your life. That's biblical love right, and so it means that at any moment, I don't want to say like any in all moments, but that when you have a choice between Serving yourself or serving others you choose serving others right and the great promise the great truth.

The sort of counter cultural flipped on its head thing that no one would expect is that it turns out that serving others Very much results in serving yourself right blessing yourself as well. Yes, Bev.

Mm-hmm. Oh Yeah, sure, yeah. Well, but then you're not loving your family the way you ought to so yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Then we we ought to love we ought to like it's almost like a goal of our act love actions.

You know something we can be thinking about is how can we love them in a way that? Makes them more dependent on Christ. I Kind of points them make keeps them looking upwards right pushes them in the to grow more Christlike.

Yep. All right. I just want to very quickly mention or I'm almost running out of time. But Paul here lists four different commandments right adultery not a do not commit adultery. Do not murder. Do not steal do not covet.

I just want to zoom in real quick on the fourth one about do not covet and the reason I want to zoom in on Is because I think it's really important in church life. Especially in our church life because you know James Boyce he puts it this way.

He says the biggest problem with covetousness is not the trouble. It gets us into however bad that is. It is rather that it makes us insensitive to the needs of other people and it Rather that it makes us insensitive to the needs of other people.

He explains for instead of helping us to see who they are and what their needs are Covetousness makes us jealous of others with the result that we only see what they have and We want it. You get that I mean we should be looking for what is missing in their lives.

Where the gap is how we can help? There but instead covetous puts the focus on what's present in their lives and makes us think about our own gaps instead. And Covetousness is just it's a awful sin because it's so it just creeps in right it's insidious.

I Always picture it sort of like nipping at my heels. Just because I can. I don't know about you, but it's certainly true of me. I can just so easily slip into Thoughts of jealousy without even realizing I'm doing it.

They don't even sound at first like a jealous thought. But I realize I say to myself like oh, you know so-and-so it just looks like they've got their everything their family. They just got it together.

They show up every Sunday morning, and they're all dressed in matching outfits. I don't know. Everything looks great. I wish I could do something like that. I wish I could be like them right kind of. It sounds kind of positive at first.

But if you really think about it is Jealousy and it blinds our eyes to see the opportunities to help to serve and to support and how can we truly love others? If we can't even see the opportunities in the first place.

So I'm gonna leave you. I've only got a few more minutes left, so I'm gonna leave you with my prescription. Okay, my prescription for in order for us to be able to spot these opportunities to put brotherly and sisterly love into action.

Seasoned members of BBC here's the three things we need to do okay, and we need to resolve to do them continuously. Very consciously we need to keep these kind of things at the very forefront of our minds.

Especially when we come together here in this building. Okay, because this is the this is the time where we're really able to come together to see those opportunities if nothing else Sunday morning Services is when we really need to put these into action, but hopefully all the time, but let's let's talk about it.

Right three things one forgive. Forgive and please forgive quickly. So that no bitter grudge gets in the way of any opportunity to love. This is why Paul admonishes the church right to to not Partake or hastily partaking communion if they've or fellowship meals with one another if they've got some kind of unresolved conflict.

He's doing it because you know he talks about it because he wants those conflicts to be resolved quickly. Janet very early on in the class today talked about church discipline. What's the very first step in church discipline?

Does anybody remember Matthew 18 15 the very first step to confront them and Jesus says and if they repent? He says congratulations. You have won your brother. Here's the thing maybe you didn't realize this that ought to be happening every day in our church.

Every day is Your husband or wife or best friend part of this church. Yes. Do you need to confront them sometimes about sins in their lives? Yes. Right that's happening every day all the time church discipline all the time.

That's a healthy church for that to be happening if we're ignoring that if we're not doing that we're an unhealthy church. And I want you to gain your brother and sister for Christ. Okay, so forgive number one number two listen.

Listen and listen carefully. I knew someone in my old church in Pittsburgh. She had the spiritual gift of sensitivity. I would sort of joke that she could be across the room for me and ask me how I'm doing.

And I would be like fine, and she would know. Somehow that it was not fine today right and She would use that to just you know immediately reach out to those people and see how she could help them. Find out what was going on?

Whenever we gather as a church community We need to treat someone sitting or standing alone as an emergency. Okay an emergency. We cannot have Clicks happening in our church where we stand together in our little kind of clusters of three to five people.

And then there's one person over there in the corner standing by themselves not talking to anybody. Our friends can wait sometimes. All right, let's not leave anyone standing by themselves, and let's talk.

And let's listen take notes if you have to. Tony Merida, I've been reading this book about how to love your church by Tony Merida, and he has this great suggestion. He talks about planning your week on Sunday evening.

Based at least on part in what you heard in church that morning. He says look for opportunities every week to do good to others. Can you imagine what would happen in your church if everyone spent time planning ways to bless each other.

Okay, so that's. Number two is listen listen is how we're gonna know what needs there are and how we can serve. And then number three and This might be the hardest one is Be vulnerable. Be vulnerable.

Because just like I said about my friend in Pittsburgh I answered fine. When I wasn't fine. Pride. Pride is another enemy of love because it puts you in the mindset in the position of Being unable to accept love gifts from your brothers and sisters.

All right, and not everyone has that spiritual gift of sensitivity. There are brothers and sisters who want to help who want to love on you, but they just don't know how. They don't know what's going on in your life.

And So we've got to put away the pride that worries what others are gonna think of us because we're struggling with something. And I don't even mean giant struggles. We got to talk about small ones and big ones all at the same time right because.

You know whether we're struggling with something physical or emotional material. Monetarial whatever. Right we got to be honest and open with our brothers and sisters. I don't mean that we have to stand up here at the front of the room and announce it to the whole congregation.

But you know this is another big plus for home groups. Right about what makes home groups so great. It's a smaller group a group that you can be more. You know build a really close relationship with maybe.