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I don't know about you, but I love weddings. So far, we have two weddings on tap at Bethlehem Bible Church this year, and I'm looking forward to both of them. They remind me of many things, one being of my dear wife and I when we were married 18 years ago, and just what a sweet and rich time that was.
I like weddings because all the focus is on the bride, and isn't that true? Everyone stands and turns as the bride comes walking down the aisle, and everyone's looking, and it's just one of those opportunities where all the focus is on that bride, their beauty.
I don't like to tell anybody that they look beautiful outside of my relatives and my girls and my wife, but I reserve one time in my life for all of you that I would ever marry, and I'll look at the bride as we're up in front of the church, and I look at her, and I say, you look beautiful today.
That's the only time I'm ever going to say it, though, because there's one that's got my heart and not another, but they're just so beautiful, and it's a great time at a wedding. I have a question for you this morning.
When the groom is up front waiting for his bride, and everyone is staring at the bride, they stand, and they look, and they're staring. Do you think the groom is feeling jealous? Do you think the groom is saying, I'm at the front of the church, I initiated this covenant, I'm the one that asked her, I had to get down on my knees and beg her to marry me, and everyone's not looking at me.
They're all looking at the bride. Is that how it goes? Are you jealous that your bride gets the attention? On a much greater scale, did you know that Jesus Christ's bride, the church, receives interest, receives inspection, receives attention across the world, and the groom, Jesus Christ, is glad about that.
When the church receives the focus and attention that many people will give, Jesus Christ is glorified. Actually, when the groom watches his bride become the center of attention, he knows he's one with her, and he knows that as she receives attention and praise, he owns that.
He's not mad about it. If you'll turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 3, I want to show you this morning as we continue the series on commitment to the church, that God is so committed to the church that He puts the church on display like a groom displays his bride, and that in weddings on earth, of course, the groom is sinful and not the Savior.
We'll still get the picture in our mind when we think about weddings, the great picture that Jesus Christ is the groom, and He buys for Himself a bride, and as that bride is exalted and cleansed and washed and sanctified, people don't say, oh, look at the church and how she did this.
Look at the bride and look what she did for herself. They'll all look to the great groom, Christ Jesus, and say, what a great husband. Whenever I do a wedding, I always say the same thing, and Amanda and Kristen will both receive these kind of comments as I have the privilege to marry them soon.
I'll ask the husband to be, tell me four reasons why you picked your wife to be, four things that caught your eye, and I've got all kinds of different answers before, and they're all good. You can just see as the engaged couples are sitting there, and I look to the man, and I say, tell me four reasons why you picked this young lady to be your bride.
You can just see they turn different colors, and it's just a cute moment, and I say, I'm not kidding. I want to know four reasons, and I get my pencil out, and they continue to think I'm strange, and they're right, but I will use strange to teach a point, and so they usually say things like, she's a Christian.
She believes in the sovereignty of God. They usually say she's a Calvinist, but I don't like to say that word from the pulpit, so she believes in the sovereignty of God. She's beautiful. She loves kids.
She's funny, and they just go on and on, and I have to say, slow down, just four, and then I say, do I have your permission to tell that to the congregation when I do your wedding? They said, yes. On earth, grooms choose spouses because they're lovely.
In heaven, God, the son, chooses his bride. Did I say choose grooms? No. In heaven, you have to be careful with that. In heaven, you think it's easy to be a pastor, don't you? In Massachusetts, I now get these forms for weddings.
When I got here 10 years ago, it was very simple. Husband, wife, fill out the form, and now I get name one, name two. At the bottom, it says man, woman. At the bottom here, it says man, woman. You think it's easy to be a pastor?
But when Jesus picks the bride, he doesn't pick her because she is lovely, because she's not. He doesn't, like the groom on earth, pick his bride because she's pretty, because the church is not. The four words that describe Christians in Romans 5 would be helpless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies.
Yet God picks us even though we're those things, because he can help us, because he can make us friends, he can make us godly, and he can make us saints. And when you take a bride on earth or on heaven, in heaven or on earth, and show the greatness of that bride, the groom is exalted.
And here in Ephesians 3, I want to show you how central the church is to God's program, because that will make you respond, well, if God is that committed to the local church, if he's committed that much to the universal church, then so should I be committed to the same degree.
Ephesians 3, verse 8, we're talking about the apostle Paul here and how he is given a ministry. And here is the ministry Paul has given, Ephesians 3, 8, as we'll focus in on the groom's delight to see his bride stared at and adored.
So we'll get a picture of the central importance of the church to God's program. To me, Paul said, Ephesians 3, 8, the very least of all saints. This grace was given. What kind of grace? The grace that allows me to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things.
Paul has been given this ministry for what purpose? Why would these words be used of Paul for this particular ministry? The answer is found in verse 10, and it is a mind rocker. It is a reeling and rocking when we understand the importance of this.
Verse 10, in order. To what end? It will tell us. For what purpose? The answer is verse 10. Why? Paul answers under the Spirit's inspiration. In order that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known through the church.
That is amazing to me. God says, I'm going to show off just how wise I am. Do you want to know the wisdom of God? Oh, you might go to creation, but that would just show God's power, certainly wisdom. But if you look at all the things that God has ever done in the world and stack them up and say, which one displays His wisdom at the pinnacle or at the peak, at the high mountain?
It is that God shows His wisdom through the church. And it's not just any wisdom. Do you see the word manifold? It's diverse wisdom. It's rich wisdom. It's wisdom that's multifaceted, multicolored, lots of layers.
It's onion wisdom where you peel off the outside of the onion and you see, boy, there's more onion in there. There's more pungent onion in there. There's more seed of an onion there. That's the same thing here.
Rainbow-like splendor of God's wisdom found in the church, that God could redeem sinners out of Jews and Gentiles and put them all together as one. It's wisdom shown forth by God. And who does He show this to?
Who's on the stage? Who's sitting in the audience watching this production on the stage? Do you see the text? That is absolutely amazing. He shows this wisdom that's made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
That should shock you. God is showing how wise He is by displaying the church to demons and to angels. Angels and demons are watching the church and they all go, wow, that is wise. After all, angels have been around a long time.
They're created, but they've been around a long time and they've seen Jewish history. They've seen Abraham chosen. They've seen the covenant with Abraham. They've seen God sovereignly choose Isaac and not Ishmael.
They thought, oh, that's wise. They've seen God choose Jacob and not Esau. They look back and say, that was smart. They've seen Moses and the Red Sea and redemption and say, God, you are incredible. They've seen the Babylonian captivity, but until the church was born, they hadn't seen anything yet.
That God would take this church, this sullied group of people, Jew and Gentile, and then redeem them and wash them and make them white as snow and say, you know, this is my pure virgin bride. And the angels and the demons look and say, that's wise.
That is wise. Who is watching the church? The angels and demons, of course, according to Ephesians chapter three, verse 10. The holy angels would praise God, God, you're wonderful, you save, you redeem, you exalt.
God, you're on display, you're wonderful. How would the demons look at this and even give glory to God? Because demons do give glory to God. They don't want it to be glory. They don't intend it to be glory.
But they realize their plan to frustrate God's kingdom and God's goodness and God's forgiveness has been terminated. Their rebellious plan will not be able to work. They're unable to compromise God's integrity as He promises to redeem His church.
They can be in the presence of God, these holy angels, for thousands upon thousands of years and now have their world rocked by looking at the church. It's beyond their wildest dreams. You see, angels can't understand redemption, can they?
They can't understand it personally. They may know intellectually, but has an angel ever been redeemed or will they? They fall, no redemption plan, God's just. Same with us though. If we sinned and we did an Adam and we sinned on the earth, God says, you know what, there's just justice for you, no grace and mercy.
God would be right in doing that. But God gets more glory by rescuing some and giving them grace. And the angels look and say, that's amazing. First Peter chapter one, it was talking about the angels trying to peek into this idea.
It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.
Listen, things into which angels long to look. God said, I taught you a lot, I taught you much, and now here comes graduate school. The church observe my wisdom. Observe that Satan is defeated. People run around with angel pins on all the time.
Have you seen that? It's not as big as it used to be, but they have little angel pins, touched by an angel. You know, angels are running around with little church pins on. Okay, it's just a figure of speech, but you get the point.
Homer Kent said, thus angels who had witnessed the fall of man never knew until the revelation of the mystery of the church how God would achieve this grand unity through the church. They had known how God had chosen Israel.
Gentiles, however, that's a different story. When you want to see the wisdom of God, look at the stars, fine. Look at the Grand Canyon, fine. Look at the Swiss Alps, great, but it is incomparably insignificant to God's wisdom in the church.
How could God deal with sin? How could God still be just and the justifier? How could he be holy and gracious at the same time? It's shown in the church and the Jews and Gentiles come together and the angel goes, the angel say, that is amazing.
Who would come up with the incarnation? Jesus, born in a stable. His father is a carpenter. He's raised under law. And then he has a way because of his perfect work and death that he reconciles Jews and Gentiles.
God waited for a long time for man to come up with it on their own. Plato and Socrates and all these others that would come along, they could never figure out how do you deal with Jews and Gentiles coming together in a local body to praise God in holiness.
And I don't believe Jesus is saying, you know what, I'm showing you the church, but I'm jealous to receive that glory for myself because they're one. As the church receives gazing upon and looking upon, everybody looks at the church and they don't say, well, the church was worthy.
They say it's the one who's the groom is worthy. You want to see wrath, look at Sodom and Gomorrah. You want to see love, look at the cross. You want to see the wisdom of God, you look at the church. This is a divine object lesson of wisdom.
And so as I look at you, I'm not the only one looking at you. Who's watching? This is not just the church at Pentecost, but God is showing as a continual replay, here's what's going on in the local church.
Here's what's going on in my bride. Here's what's going on in the universal church, which includes local churches. My wisdom in God is having the angels watch us and learn. My question to you is this morning, what are the angels seeing?
When the angels see you, when the angels see you in this church, do they say wisdom? Or do they say, these people in the church don't even live any different than they used to? James Montgomery's voice said, now you and I are players in the drama.
Satan is attacking and the angels are straining forward to look on. Are they seeing the manifold wisdom of God in you as you go through your part and speak your lines? You want to know the focal part of history?
It's the cross. You want to know the focal part of history after the cross? And one way you could argue, it's the church. You say, well, that's pretty good for God because God had to make it up on the fly.
Part plan B and there was sin and what to do and he had to try to figure it out and God's like this great chess player and Satan does this and God knows and he can move everything around. But that's not what the Bible says.
When did God come up with this plan? When did he think about it? Who has informed him or given him any knowledge? Look at the verse, verse 11. Do you want to know when it was planned that the church would be the object lesson of God's wisdom for all who would look including angels and demons?
Verse 11 gives the answer. This what we've just been talking about was in accordance with the definite article, eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord. And if you think history is cyclical, then you're cynical.
This was planned in eternity past. It's all going according to plan. God's got a plan. He chooses the elect. He has a son redeem the elect. He has the spirit of God. Have those elect come to faith and everyone looks and the angels say, you are wise, God.
Sovereign, deliberate plan and scheme of God. It's not arbitrary. It's not plan B. It's not accidental. It's not the best of a bunch of options. God said, I'm committed to the local church before eternity begins.
And our response should be, well, God, if you're committed, I want to show forth wisdom to the angels who are watching and I'm committed. Jesus is committed to the church. I think I should be committed to the church.
Well, how does that flesh itself out? Today is going to be the last of a three-part series on commitment to the church. I have about 10 more weeks to go, but I'm bound and determined to get into Matthew 5 next week.
So it'll be Matthew 5, 43 and following next Sunday. And if I have to preach till four o 'clock this afternoon, I'm just going to preach. You guys should not be antsy. The patriots have won and you can all just rest comfortably.
You can put off your graven image idol worship for another week. Hey, by the way, I just have a little info. I never want to be a pastor who says, well, you know, the Super Bowl is on Sunday night and we should probably rearrange the service so people can have other priorities.
And so I'm the kind of guy that, you know, don't touch wet paint you want to touch. And I'm the kind of guy that if you say, well, we should revolve our corporate worship service around a football game, I kind of am, you know, here's money in your eye kind of guy, so I would never cancel a service.
So the other day I get online and Tracy Johansen, the secretary, sent out a little email. Hey, four o 'clock on Super Bowl Sunday, it's a youth group event. Come on over, bring your kids. The four o 'clock on Sunday, it's a church Sunday and she's a secretary, you're fired.
What are you doing? I mean, since this is a Christian organization, we'll probably have to rehire you the next day, but we won't bridge your vesting. And then at the bottom it said, have a guilt-free thing.
It's guilt-free because there's no service that night. So now she's planning our worship services. You're double fired. So Steve and I are in my study just going, she's so in trouble. Well, one of the things we want to do at the church is we want to have time around the Lord's table and we've experimented some on Sunday nights.
And I thought, you know, it'd be good on Sunday mornings, the next three first Sundays, February first Sunday, March first Sunday, April first Sunday, that we would have a time of a regular worship service on Sunday.
We'll have some finger food and some sandwiches and some soda and some chips for a half hour and we'll come back in here, sing a hymn, have communion, sing another hymn and we'll be done for the day. Just a time that the saints can be around.
I thought that would be a good idea. It's on February third, Super Bowl Sunday, no service that night. I thought, what am I doing? So I'll be here at six o 'clock if anybody wants to come. I need to finish today in this commitment series because we need to get to Matthew.
But the last three weeks, including this week, we've tried to show from a variety of different ways that Jesus is committed to the church. As a groom is committed to his bride, so too is Jesus committed to the church.
He lays down His life for the sheep. He is committed to bear the curse that was due us in His body on the tree and be raised from the dead. And if you want to motivate Christians, you can go tell them to be motivated or you can say, here's Christ, look at Him, and your response would naturally be, supernaturally be through the Spirit of God, I want to be committed.
I want to love the same things Jesus loves. How does that flesh itself out? How is it made manifest in the local church? Number one, it was seen by salvation. You are not committed to the church, universal or local, the church worldwide or this church unless you're a Christian.
You can't be because the first step of commitment is, God has saved me and I love Christ Jesus. The second step would be baptism. It's always the same, believe and be baptized, believe and be immersed.
The text is very clear. We can't argue with the text. We might want to argue about tradition or background, but it's always believe and be baptized and show others that you're willing to follow Christ.
And when Jesus says, I do, then the response, I do, is seen in baptism. Baptism shows the words, I do. I want to do two or three more today. Number three, membership. Church membership. And what I'd like you to do is consider these questions that I want you to listen to and then you can answer that will help you with the idea of church membership.
Don Whitney, who will be here in a couple months, states the attitude of some, quote, if I come and worship as often as the members, if I fellowship with these believers as much as anyone else, if I profit from the teaching and other ministries of the church, and if I actively demonstrate love for my brothers and sisters in Christ here, why should I formally join the church?
So let me give you several questions that you could listen to and then answer that I hope will spur you on to be a member. By the way, we don't have any kind of numbers that we have to get. We're not saying, well, we have four baptisms this week, so God is surely working.
We preach for God's glory and He gives the increase, yes? So I'm not after some kind of number. That's not my purpose and it should never be my purpose. Question number one about membership, do you recognize that the New Testament takes membership in a local church for granted?
It's a for granted thing. When you look at the Bible, you will see that it was something taken for granted to be a member of a local church. After all, in Acts chapter 2, verse 41, 3 ,000 souls were added.
They knew those souls. Church discipline, how can church discipline be carried out and how can you discipline people out of the church unless you know who those people are that you discipline them out of?
1 Corinthians chapter 5, how do we clean out the old leaven? How do we say don't associate if we don't understand? And frankly, what happens is if you've got a church back at Corinth or Galatia, there was only one church there.
And if you lived in Galatia, guess what region of Galatia, let's use a city instead, if you lived in the church of Corinth, if you lived at Corinth and you got saved and baptized, what church would you go to?
Well, you'd go to First Baptist Church of Corinth, of course. No, you would go to the only church of Corinth. But we're far removed from the New Testament times and how many churches are in Worcester?
How do you affiliate with the local church? And in the New Testament, it was just always assumed. Let's go to Romans chapter 16 for a moment. Let me just show you an example. You have one lady, she leaves one church, she goes to another church for all the right reasons and you can tell the church is trying to keep track of whose sheep were whose and that she was leaving for the right reasons and going to go join for the right reasons and it's just assumed.
If you want me to give you a verse, thou must be a church member. I can't find it. But if you want to just see that everywhere you go, it just pours out local church membership, this is a good example.
Romans chapter 16, I commend to you our sister, Phoebe, who is a servant of the church, which is at Sancria. She's there and now she's coming over here and we want you to know she's one of ours. How would you know that she's been baptized and believe and she's on the list as it were.
She's assumed to be a member. That you receive her, verse 2, in the Lord in a worthy manner of the saints, that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you for she herself has been a helper of many and of myself as well.
And so Paul is letting others know. The church, if you turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter 5, had a list and had a list of not just congregational members, but specifically a list of widows. Look at 1 Timothy chapter 5.
I like to just go to one place in the Bible and park there, but today I won't be able to do that. 1 Timothy chapter 5, what kind of list? They were kept and they were tracked and they knew who these widows are.
They were listed. Certainly implies that there's some list of members that we pull these widows from, 1 Timothy 5 .9. A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than 60 years old and then having all kinds of qualifications found in verses 9 and following, 10, etc.
Acts chapter 5, somebody gets killed and none of the rest dare to associate with the church. The word for associate there is to glue or to cement, to get close to that church. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 14, and again we're just skipping around here, but I believe everywhere you go in the New Testament, you will see the emphasis of the local church and the emphasis that these people were part of the membership.
And the leadership knew that and they knew them by name, 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 23. Therefore, if the whole church assembles together, who's that? How do you know if the whole church is assembled together?
How does the whole church gather together? It implies all members naturally understood who these members were and they come. And it talks about speaking in tongues. Listen to what Mark Deborah of Capitol Hills Baptist, if the church is a building, then we must be the bricks in it.
If the church is a body, then we are its members. If the church is the household of faith, it presumes we are part of that household. Sheep are in a flock and branches are on a vine. Biblically, if one is a Christian, he must be a member of a church.
Leaving aside the concrete particulars for a moment, whether membership lists are kept on white cards or on computer disks, we must not forsake our regular assembly, Hebrews chapter 10. This membership is not simply the record of a statement we once made or of affection towards a familiar place.
It must be a reflection of a living commitment or it is worthless. Question number two, do you realize it's completely and perfectly appropriate for elders to ask you to take membership class, have an interview, and then be a member of a church?
Do you realize it's perfectly appropriate for us to have those requirements for local church membership? Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13. As you're turning there, when I first got to the church, there were some folks who were attending and if you want to attend this church in any kind of clothes you want, I believe James chapter two is in the Bible and I believe you can wear whatever you want to church.
But if you have certain leadership positions, then we have other requests that we're perfectly fine to ask. And so I'll say, if you preach in this pulpit, I'd like you to wear a suit. When I go to India, sometimes I don't wear a suit.
I go to South Africa this year, Zambia, I don't know what I'll preach in, but I'll just preach what the leadership asked me to preach in. And so I said to a group of people, I said, you know, if you're going to be up on the platform and you're going to play songs and be the drummer and be other things, I just don't want you to wear some kind of wrinkled t-shirt.
Because this particular person wore a t-shirt that looked like they got out of the washer, wadded it all up for a tie-dye session, and then just set it down on the tool bench and then sprayed it with extra starch.
And then they wore it. And I just thought, would you please wear something nicer? And then I said to the ushers, I'd like you to wear a tie. And so the response immediately back was, you show me a Bible verse and I'll do it.
Welcome to New England. I thought it's going to be a long 10 years, longest three decades of my life to be exact. You'll see from this passage that if elders ask you to do something and they're not asking you to sin, your responsibility is to do it.
Your responsibility is not, you show me a verse. Your responsibility is, you show me a verse or you do what I ask you to do, according to the verse. Well, let's look at the verse, Hebrews 13, 17. It's fine for us to be able to say, you want to be a member, take the four-week class, give a testimony and be baptized.
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. Now, if you go back up to verse 7, Paul or whoever wrote Hebrews has just said, you know, you owe your old dead teachers obedience because of what they've done for you.
You have somebody in your life that has taught you and trained you and maybe they're gone to glory and you think, for their name I want to obey, verse 7. Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you and consider the result of their conduct.
Imitate their faith. An old faithful pastor, alive or dead, do what he asks. Show holiness, ultimately to the Lord. And if you remember your former leaders, then how about your current leaders? And so he says, what's the duty towards current leaders?
What's the duty to the ministers, to the elders? Obey and submit. Because why? One, they keep watch. They keep awake. They're going to be called on account one day for those in the membership of the church.
And the text is obey, present imperative, always obey. And the text submit is present imperative, always submit. Now, my biggest lesson about submission is you don't submit until you disagree. Husbands, when your wives are asked to submit to you, they may in fact disagree but go along anyway.
That's called submission. Submission does not say, show me a verse and I'll do it. Submission says, I will yield my contrary opinion in favor of those that God has placed over me. We're not asking you to sin to take a class.
Why obey? One, they watch over your souls. Two, they must give an account. And you should do so with joy and not with grief. And I have much joy at this church but I don't get joy when people say, you prove it to me that I have to do this when I'm not asking you to sin.
How do you give elders joy? Willing submission to their authority. Because if we don't get that, then what does the text say? Not with joy but with grief, groaning. It turns your elders into groaning, ornery, just, you know, dealing with stubborn sheep all day.
Oh, I need some emotional refreshment, not emotional fatigue. And also notice, what does this text assume? This text assume that every Christian has someone that they answer to. This presents the norm for every Christian that I have someone over me that I must obey.
And if you're not a member, it ultimately can't be true. Especially if those leaders are saying, for the sake of this local church, for the sake of membership, that nine billion other churches do practically the same thing, take these classes, give your testimony, and come up in front of the church and say, I will serve this church.
It's not a sinful thing to ask. You say, well, some people have been burned out by pastors and churches and they've been hurt by churches. Friends, I'm sure that's true. But as Abraham Lincoln once said, it's better to trust and be disappointed once in a while than it is to distrust and be miserable all the time.
And to use Josh Harris' words, we gave you the book two years ago, Stop Dating the Church. Well, I just need another year to figure it out. See how it is. How long does it take you to test drive a car?
Maybe it takes you a long time, I don't know. Question three, did you know membership declares, I am here to serve others and pour myself into Christ's people? Did you know membership declares, I am here to serve others at Bethlehem Bible Church and pour myself into Christ's people at Bethlehem Bible Church?
That's why we ask you to take the class for Bethlehem Bible Church. The opposite of that is, I am here to receive. I am not here to give. The leech has two sisters and her names are Give Give. Ken Sands said, most people now from a leadership weekly poll don't think membership is very important.
And he said, because most people consider Christianity like a cruise ship, not a battleship. And they think the church is emphasizing casualness and fun activities instead of raising the bar for the glory of God.
Did you know that people who are members of this church serve more than people who aren't members? Does that shock you? It shouldn't because you've made a commitment. I'm here to serve others. Jesus isn't in this church physically, but you are, I'm committed to serve you no matter what.
And by the way, if you're not a member, you will receive less pressure from us to serve because you're not a member. If you say, I'm a member and I want you to help me along the way, part of that help is you need to have a ministry.
Come alongside. When you serve, you are saying, when you become a member, you're saying, I make a commitment to this particular group and I'm going to love them. I'm going to disciple them and the church will go.
Our expectations are increased. Jim Elliot said, wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt of every situation you believe to be the will of God. Do you think it's not the will of God to be involved in a local church and be a member?
You say, yeah, but those people there, you know, I don't like some of them. You're not called to like anybody. I mean, that's my problem is I want to be liked. Instead of I want to be holy. Josh Harris said, do you want to know what's harder?
Do you want to know what takes more courage and what will make you grow faster than anything else? Join a local church and lay down yourself and desires by considering others more important than yourself.
And enter in church covenant says, I will be with this church and to serve this people and I will be a giver, not a taker. Question four. For those of you that thought it's pretty calm so far, here comes the zinger.
Question four. Did you know that membership in a local church certifies your salvation? Did you know that membership in a local church, Bethlehem Bible Church, certifies your salvation? You like to know you're a Christian?
I usually like to know if I'm a Christian. How about this? You think I was hard? How about Mark Dever, who writes on church membership? Maybe more than most these days. Here's what Mark Dever said. I almost hate to say it.
If you are not a member of the church you regularly attend, you may be going to hell. Everybody's looking. I've got your attention. When you join a church, you go through the process so the leadership corporately endorses you and affirms that your testimony is credible.
That you believe in the right God and you believe in grace alone through faith alone. You don't believe that baptism saves you. You don't believe that somebody can say some mumbo jumbo at the end of your life over your bed in a hospital and somehow you're going to heaven.
We affirm that it is a personal, viable, vibrant trust in the work of another at Calvary in our place. And it's not just intellectual, it's personal. And that's what Dever's trying to say. Listening to the interviews and talking to the people.
And then lastly, number five. Are you a member of a local church? Are you a member of Bethlehem Bible Church? By the way, if you're not a member, I still love you. It's not a personal animosity at all.
I'm just trying to bear the Scriptures to your conscience and try to tell you the onus is on you to tell the leadership why it's not biblical. Did you know that it's easier for you to serve if you're a member?
I just talked about this earlier, but let me make what was implicit now explicit. Do you know it's easier to serve if you're a member? There are some things at this church that you cannot do if you're not a member.
Did you know that? We're not going to let you teach. You just don't walk in off the streets and say, Hi, I'm here to serve, and by the way, give me all your 10-year-olds. We just don't do those kind of things.
When you're a member, then you say, I want to serve in these areas, and now help me and watch me and disciple me and come alongside of me. I'm here. It's much easier with accountability and responsibility to say, I am a member, and I am committed.
And I will be under church discipline if I disobey. And you say, well, you know, you'll church discipline me even if I'm not a member. Yes, but it's better to have those people say, I want to be church disciplined if I'm doing wrong.
That will sanctify you in a hurry. MacArthur said, not joining the church is saying, I don't want to serve the only institution Christ ever built. So do I want to report to our home office how many people became members?
No, I just want you to serve with your whole heart. I just want you to say, no matter how bad I've been burned, I need to say to God through this local church, I love you in spite of who you are. You don't have to say that out loud.
I love you, and I'm going to serve you. And I'll make the commitment. And I can't find in the Bible a good case to present to the elders why I shouldn't be one. And so, therefore, I will obey and submit to them and take the four-week class.
If it's a 40-week class, you should be willing to take that. We have lots of areas that we need good servers here who are members of the church, who are committed, who go to church saying, I have an attitude of wanting to serve because I have made a public covenant with this congregation to serve.
Coming to church saying, I want to serve today. I mean, service is pretty easy when you think about it. Can you imagine God has blazed the trail for you to serve in eternity past? How about this verse, Ephesians 2 .10, For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
And where's the realm of that good work being taken place? In the church, of course. We've got all kinds of things we need to do. One of my new pet projects is this. You know, people are driving now from, I don't know, Quebec to get here on Sunday morning.
And then you know what they want? They want to come back on Sunday night. So they drive all the way back to Quebec and then all the way back on Sunday night, and they're here. So what do we do? Well, we want to be kind to them and babysit their kids and all that.
And then we just say, be warm, be filled, and here's some money for gas. No. You know, it's on my heart that I would want one of you to come alongside and say, I want to own this, and I'm ready to open up my house.
How about this? How about about 10 of you who have homes that are given by God, big homes, nice homes, spacious homes, homes that are close to the church, say, you know what? We're ready today to have some family over.
So if they drive all the way in from Quebec, they come to our house afterwards, they spend some time around the table. You don't have to have everything clean. You don't have to do anything. Husband, just buy some pizza or something, bring in the food, and say, we want to just love you today.
We've never met you. You come over to our homes today. We'll have a sweet day of fellowship. Might even take a nap in front of you on the couch or something. And then tonight we'll come back at 6 o 'clock because by the time we leave here at 1 .30, get home at 3 o 'clock, and then we have to get back in the car at 5.
It's the day. It wouldn't be a great way to serve others and say, our home is given by God. All I have is God. I have a servant attitude and just says, please come. I don't know who you are, and it doesn't matter to me.
Come. Would that be a great ministry or what? One man said, we make time for duties we love. We make time for people we love. And being a local church member just says, I'm going to have my face to the grindstone, watching other people serve, and I want to have that good pressure from leadership and other people to say, you know, hedonism will never satisfy.
I want to serve others. All right. I'm pretty much out of time, so I'm going to give the last one, and then we've got to be done. If you're not a Christian here now and you're listening to me, I have a feeling you're probably going to go, here it goes again.
It's the whole money pitch. I've preached on money maybe two to five times in my whole Christian pastoral life. So if you're here as an unbeliever and you think I'm after your money, I don't want any of your money.
You probably think I'm already crazy, so a little bit more won't hurt. The strange thing is Christians don't need to be goaded into giving money. I never preach on money. When I got here, we made, it was $1 ,800 a week, probably giving up to $2 ,200 a week, and now you are giving $10 ,000 a week, and do I ever talk about money?
I hardly ever talk about money. That's all code for I'm going to talk to you about giving money. Giving is down in churches. The average American today earns almost four times what the American earned in 1921, yet giving is down.
We have tons of great givers here. I just want to push you and say if you're committed to the local church, you need to be a believer, you need to be baptized, you need to be a member, you need to be a server, and you need to be a giver.
And let's just turn to 2 Corinthians 8 for our final few comments about giving, and I think I will surprise you. I will think you will hear me say that if you don't want to give your money here, keep it.
I don't need your money. The Lord doesn't need your money. Nobody needs your money, and so if you don't want to give, you shouldn't give. But if you have the funny conviction that you're a sinner saved by grace and everything you own is from God, I think I'm going to have to tell you to stop giving so much.
That's exactly what happens here in Corinth. 2 Corinthians 8. Just wild, the privilege of giving sacrificially. You don't pay my salary. You don't pay the missionary's salary. You don't pay for the lights.
You give your money to Christ Jesus. It's like those crazy guys on TV always asking for money for Jesus and then giving their home address. I mean, I could never figure that out. The day that they answer to God for judgment day, for them robbing God's sheep blindly, will be a bad day.
But if you want to show me how committed you are to the local church, I'll show you that you're a sacrificial giver. 2 Corinthians 8, verse 1. Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God, which has been given in the churches of Macedonia.
The grace of God, you mean salvation? No, giving money. That in great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. The churches of Macedonia, you know what?
They gave out of their deep poverty. What's the word deep in Greek? Bathus. What does Jacques Cousteau go around in 25 years ago? And now I guess the sun's around, so maybe the kids might understand. What kind of sphere do they go down deeply into the water of the ocean?
Bathysphere. They gave out of their bathysphere, is what they gave, out of their deep poverty. They were poor, dirt poor. And it overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. They were faithful. They were exemplary.
They were sacrificial. According to their ability means beyond their ability, literally. Verse 3, read it. For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability, contrary to their ability, to use the boat illustration, they gave overboard.
They gave of their own accord too. Have somebody up there shouting, giving all every week? Now, I want you to see in verse 4. I think I can make my whole case right here, verse 4. Who does the begging?
Does Paul beg them to give? Or, verse 4, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints. They did the begging. When was the last time we had that attitude? I'm begging to give.
I can't wait to give. How could you do that? How can you say, I'm a Christian, and there's all kinds of extra bills and inflation and recession and everything else, but I'm going to beg to give? The answer is in verse 5.
And this, not as we had expected. Here's the key, underline it. But they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God. So we urge Titus that he had previously made a beginning so that he would complete in you this gracious work, money as well.
But just as you abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge and in all earnestness in life and in love we inspired in you, see that you abound in this gracious work also. Hey, would you like to grow in your knowledge of faith?
Would you like to grow in grace? Would you like to grow to be a better server? Would you like to have increased faith? Paul said those are all good. And he said also you should say, I think I'd like to have an increase in my attitude of giving.
Enthusiastic. And so I want to say to you that if you don't want to give this church, you don't want to show your commitment to the local church that way, then keep your money. Keep your money. Don't give us, if you got money that you gave today, this morning, you said, you know, I just did it under pressure.
Then talk to me afterwards and we'll go to the counting area and you'll get your money back. Can we do that? I was able to do. 2 Corinthians 9 says God loves a what kind of giver? Cheerful. You know what I like to do?
I like to write that check and you go, man, when I was little and tithed, gave some offering, gave 10%, gave sacrificial, whatever words you want to use, when I gave that, oh, it wasn't too much. You know, give your kids like several banks.
Here's the church bank, here's the piggy bank, and here's the IRS huge conglomerate bureaucrat bank, right? And so you say tithing is an Old Testament concept, but it's a good place to start. You give them a dollar and give them a dollar in dimes.
Okay, we give the first fruits to the Lord in the church thing. Okay, we need to save for a rainy day. Let's have a little bank building. Put it in there. We need to have some for just spending at whim and getting a little double espresso at Starbucks.
Put that right in there. Then all of a sudden you learn that lesson and then all of a sudden you start making more money and you write the checks and you go, you know what? I can tell I'm a Christian because I would never write this size of check before.
I would think these people are all trying to swindle me and trying to get all my money. We've never had to beg at this church. You should be the beggars though. We give in proportion to our spiritual growth.
And if you look down in chapter 9, verse 7, it says, let each one do as he purposed in his heart. Plan it out, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Just plan to give wildly and plan to give bountifully.
And you know, you say, well, I'm going to run out of money and then what will I do? I've told many men at this church, the day you can't feed your family, you have to get out on the street, you call me and we'll take care of you.
But verse 8 is the manifestation of that from God's word. Think you're going to run out? What happens if you give too much? What happens if you say, you know what? It's probably wrong of me to try to pay off my credit card before I give to the local church.
There's no debtor's prison. I think I need to give to the church. I need to beg to give to the church. But what if I run out? What if I can't pay my bills? Verse 8, and God is able to make all grace, we're talking about money still, abound to you that always having all sufficiency in everything you may have an abundance for every good deed.
God's got grace. He gives it out lavishly. Therefore, we're not to give our resources with miserly attitude. Well, there's lots to be said about giving, but I think that's enough. Are you committed to the church?
Commitment to the church is manifest in many ways, but it is seen in a love of what God has done for the church and then a response, a bride's response that says, I believe in you. I'm baptized. I'm a member.
I want to serve. I want to give. I love the church. I know you love the church. And this is an exhortation to excel more. This is not an exhortation of, I can't believe how poor we're doing as a church.
If we lost everything, we would understand real riches that we have in Christ Jesus. Next week, Matthew 5. Let's pray. Lord, we exalt your name today. Christ Jesus is a great groom, and we are a redeemed people.
Help us as a church to minister to those who have needs. Help those who don't believe to have eyes of faith. For those who have not been baptized, to be obedient. For those who are not members, that they would work through those issues and then gladly identify with this church.
I pray that our service would increase, our fellowship would increase, and even our giving would increase, that we might honor you. Thank you for redeeming us. Thank you for bestowing such a manner of love upon us that we could be called your children.
And Lord, we'll look forward to what you could do with people like us in West Boylston. For Christ's glory, amen.