Is Church Membership Important

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Why is church membership important? How has it been misunderstood and misapplied in our day? People see the church as a place of services, rather than a place to serve. They see membership as an entitlement, rather than an act of submission. Pastor Foskey examines the concept of church membership from a biblical perpective.

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew.
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Over the past few months, I have been in discussions with our church eldership over a series of sermons on the health of the church.
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And you know, we've been asking questions among the eldership, trying to decide what we can do to be an encouragement to our members and increase both the spiritual growth and the vitality of our congregation.
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What can we do to help those things? Well, starting this week, I'm going to begin a series.
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The series is entitled A Healthy Church, and it's going to be seven messages.
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The first today will be an introduction, and then there will be three weeks of messages on what should members expect from the church.
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And then we will take a break for Mother's Day.
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And then there will be three more messages on what should the church expect from its members.
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So that's how the series is going to work.
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And as always, I pray that you will all be here to learn with us, and I pray that this series would glorify Christ and would ultimately encourage his people.
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So as I said this morning, as a precursor to the series, I want to preach on the very subject of what church membership itself is all about and ask the question, why? Why is this subject important? Why is this something we need to ask ourselves? Why is this something we should be studying? And we're going to deal with three questions this morning.
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We're going to ask the question, is church membership biblical? We're going to ask the question, how has the purpose of church membership been distorted? Because it has.
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And then finally, we're going to ask, why is it important? So that is where we're going to go.
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We're going to begin this morning in Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18.
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We read the context in our call to worship, and I want to again stand as we stand for the reading of God's word to open our service with this one text from the words of the Lord Jesus Christ and speaking to Peter, he said in verse 18, and I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.
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And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
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Our father and our God, as we seek to not only begin a sermon, but begin a series of sermons, Lord, which is going to address our responsibilities within the church and also the very responsibility of the church in the world.
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Lord, I pray first and foremost that you would keep me from error as I am very capable of preaching error.
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And I pray that you would keep me in the very center of your will, keep me locked to your word that I would not deviate from it.
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And I pray, oh, Lord, that you would open the hearts of the people in the congregation to hear the words and Lord God, that it would edify them, that would encourage them and Lord, that it would bring conviction.
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Father, for the believer today, I pray that the word.
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Would encourage for a closer walk and for the unbeliever, I pray, oh, Lord, that they would hear the gospel and that through it you would save souls.
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All this we ask in Jesus name and for his sake.
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Amen.
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The whole idea of church and going to church, what it means to go to church, being a part of the church really has seen drastic change, particularly in my lifetime over the past three and four decades.
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We have seen a major shift in what the church even is expected to be in the world.
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And we are at a time in history in our nation where we have the highest level of people who identify themselves not as anti-religious.
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But as simply non-religious, non-religious is the is the largest growing section of our of the people in the United States, whereas there was a time where it was very common that people would be members of a church, different denominations has never been one denomination that that reigns supreme in the United States.
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But but yet church membership was very much a part of part and parcel of being here, living here.
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But yet we see now a major shift.
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We see people who see church in a much different way.
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We see, in fact, a growing antipathy toward the church.
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Just doesn't really matter if it's there or if it's not.
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We can take it or we can leave it if we want a spiritual influence in our life.
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Well, hey, we've got three hundred and some odd channels on the television and many of those channels at any moment of the day.
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I could turn on and I could watch and I could see somebody preaching at me.
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Or if I listen to any number of radio stations, I could hear someone preaching to me.
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Well, what what is the purpose? What do you know? Why does it even matter? I mean, in the age of the iPhone, do we really need the church? That's where we've come in a lot of people's mind.
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And what has happened is that the church, in an attempt to stay relevant.
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That's the that's the big important term now is relevance and an attempt to stay relevant.
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There has been a major shift in the methodology of the church, and now the church has gone from being a a place of ministry to a place of entertainment.
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It's become a place, it's gone from being a place of serving to a place of services.
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And that's what is causing some churches to burst at the seam because they provide the best of entertainment and the best of services.
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And yet some churches are fledgling because they are not able to maintain that new status quo, which has developed, which is that the church is a place that doesn't have a chancel.
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Rather, it has a stage.
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It doesn't have a preacher.
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It has a motivational speaker.
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It doesn't have a biblical message.
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It has a relevant modern message because of somehow in the mix, the Bible has become irrelevant.
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And this is what we see.
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And this is the battle we wage in a sense as attempting to be a biblically functioning church.
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We many years ago as a church made that commitment.
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We sat down with what we were doing and what we had been doing for some 50 years.
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As a church and we we we took a strong look at ourselves and we repented of some of the things that we were doing wrong.
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And we looked and we said, what can we do to be a biblically functioning church? And it has been a tough road because the Bible's command for the church is much different than the modern way that church is often seen and done.
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So, again, this has led me to this conversation.
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I want to re-engage you again.
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That series of messages we did, Biblically Functioning Church, it was 27 messages.
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It's now a book, by the way.
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Some of you don't know that we have a book that's been produced by our church out of those messages called a Biblically Functioning Church.
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But the idea is we don't ever need to lose focus on that.
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We don't ever need to lose focus on what we came together to do because, beloved, it doesn't matter if we have the best of entertainment.
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It doesn't matter if we have the best of services.
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What matters is if we are doing what the Bible says we do, what we are supposed to do, what we are commanded to do.
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That is our mandate, is to be about the scriptures.
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So this morning, we are going to examine again the topic of church membership.
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This is a very important topic, as I've said, and we're going to ask some questions.
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But before we get to the questions, I want to deal with the text here in Matthew 16.
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If we look at it again, it says in verse 18, And I tell you, you are Peter.
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And on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
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One of the most important parts of this text is this is where this is one of the few times in the Bible that you actually see the word church in the Gospels.
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Now, later in the epistles, you see the word church a lot to the church at Galatia, to the church at Philippi, to the church at Corinth.
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We see that word church over and over and over.
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But yet this is a time in the text where the Lord Jesus Christ uses the word church.
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This dispels a myth, by the way.
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There is a myth among secularists which has spilled into some Christian minds that Jesus never had the intent to establish a church.
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I've heard that I've heard Jesus never intended to establish a church.
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Jesus's purpose was to come and to demonstrate love and grace and mercy, but he never intended to have people start churches as a result of his teaching.
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He never intended to have people gathering and in worship to him.
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Well, this text dispels that myth.
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It dispels that idea that Jesus never intended to build a church because he said in this text, I will build my church.
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I mean, it's very clear and in the Greek, it's very complicated.
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It says, I will build my church just in case you're wondering.
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And I know a lot of people get caught up in, well, the Greek says this, the Greek says that's what it says, whether you're speaking in English or you're speaking in Greek, that's what it says, the Greek term ecclesia is the word that is used here.
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It's the word for church where we get the word ecclesiastical, meaning having to do with the church.
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And he says this and I want to go ahead and mention there is an entire context to this passage, which I will not have time to really flesh out today because the context of the passage is in the midst of the apostle Peter is talking to Jesus.
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Jesus has asked his disciples, who does the world say that the son of man is? And his disciples answer him.
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Well, some say you're John the Baptist.
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Some say you're Elijah the prophet.
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Some say you're this, some say you're that.
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Jesus said, well, who do you say that I am? And Peter, of course, the spokesman for the group is unashamed.
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He says you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
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And Jesus says, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven has revealed this to you.
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He says right there and he goes on to say what he says.
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And I tell you, you are Peter.
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Peter, what was his what was his real name? Simon.
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Peter means rock.
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And he says, and on this rock, I will build my church.
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Now, there is great debate.
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And I want to tell you, Matthew 16, 18, major Reformation debate went on here because those who ascribe to the papacy, the belief that the pope is the head of the church.
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Matthew 16, 18 is the passage they go to.
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Because they say Peter was the first pope, he was established by Christ.
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Jesus said, you're Peter.
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Peter is Petros, meaning rock or stone.
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And upon this rock, Peter, I will build my church.
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So the idea is that Peter was the first rock.
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And then after him, everyone after him, every pope after him is in what they call the Cathedra Petri or the seat of Peter.
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Everyone after him sits in the seat of Peter.
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And they are the living Peter in the world.
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They are the rock upon whom the church is built on.
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Yet the reformers made the point, Martin Luther being one of them, that that is a misreading of this text.
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It is not Peter, the man who is the rock.
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It was the confession that was the rock.
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Peter says what you are, the Christ, the son of the living God.
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And Jesus said it is upon that it is upon the rock of confession.
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It is upon the rock of faith that I will build my church.
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It's not on Peter, the man.
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It was on the confession which came not from Peter, but from home, from my father who is in heaven.
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He has revealed this to you.
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That is the foundation upon which the church is built.
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So that gives you an exposition of this text.
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But again, that goes away from my intent of the message, I'm making a different application.
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That's the beauty of expository preaching.
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Once we understand the context of the message, we can apply the text in different ways.
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And one of the ways that I want you to understand there is an application in this text.
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It is that this text applies in a very important way to the fact that Jesus said, I will build my church, beloved.
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And the church itself is a valuable, important and might I say, God inspired institution.
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It is something that Christ intended to build.
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And it's still building today.
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We need to understand something about the church, though, is that the word church in scripture is used two ways.
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And this is one of those times, you all know, I'm a teacher at heart, preaching is secondary to teaching for me.
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I love to teach.
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I love to have a whiteboard behind me.
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I love to have markers and make diagrams.
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And I'm that kind of teacher.
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So I want you to in your mind, I want you to envision something with me because I don't have my whiteboard.
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When we talk about the church in scripture, when you hear that word church, ecclesia, when you hear that phrase, it actually refers to two things.
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There is what we call the church universal, and then there's what we call the local church.
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Now, hopefully in your mind, you can get a picture of that, what I'm saying there.
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Sometimes it's referred to as the invisible church and the visible church.
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The church universal or the invisible church is every believer in the entire world who has confessed the Lord Jesus Christ and has been regenerated in their heart.
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Born again is the word Jesus used.
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If we have been born again, we have been born again into the family of God.
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We have been made part of Jesus Christ's body.
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We are part of the church universal.
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Every single one of us, you know, we are part of the church universal.
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I could go down the street.
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I could find another church.
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There are members there who are part of the church universal.
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I could go down the street even further.
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I could go to another church.
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There's part of the church universal.
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I mean, the church at Ephesus, the church of Corinth, the church of Thessalonica, all these, these are all part of the church universal.
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Everyone has members in it that are part of the church universal.
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I could go to Holmes this morning because, yes, there are people who are part of the church universal who don't go to church, the local church.
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Everybody agree there are saved people that are home this morning.
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OK, might ask the question why maybe at the end of this series we'll see they shouldn't be home this morning, but.
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We'll say we know they're there, we know there are believers.
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They're all part of this universal, invisible church, and why we call it invisible is there's no governing body, it's under Christ.
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But yet that is not.
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The way the church was established to be managed, Jesus Christ, through the apostles work.
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Established the local church to be the place wherein believers would fellowship, congregate, experience ministry, discipline the ordinances and the blessings of God.
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He established the local church for that purpose.
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That's why.
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I think we lose that idea when people say, well, I'm a Christian, but I, I stay at home and I watch, you know, I watch Pastor so-and-so on television and I talk to my Christian friends on the telephone and I have church by myself and a lot of people do this.
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A lot of people.
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That's the idea of church.
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Well, I just I sit in my room, I pray and I watch Pastor so-and-so and that's my church.
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Beloved, the Bible knows nothing of the lone wolf Christian.
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The Bible, the Bible gives no prescription for that.
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Rather, instead, the Bible gives a different prescription.
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It gives a prescription for the fellowship of the saints.
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It gives a prescription for ministry within the body.
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And it gives a prescription for the purpose of elders and deacons and the congregation within that body.
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So let's ask a few questions.
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Let's get to our questions now.
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Question number one, is church membership in a local congregation? We're talking about the visible church now.
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We can use ourselves as an example.
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Is church membership in the local congregation biblical? Now, that's an important question, but I think that the reasoning behind that question is justified.
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We see local churches in the Bible.
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There's the church at Ephesus, Thessalonica, Corinth and all the rest.
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But as the question was relayed, where do we get the concept of membership? Well, most of the modern concept of church membership is far removed from the biblical concept of church membership.
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But just because membership has been misunderstood in our day, which we'll get to in a moment, does not mean that the concept is unbiblical.
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The local assemblies in the New Testament had membership.
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And we know this because of a very simple reason.
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They had a formal exclusion process.
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Let me say that again.
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The reason why we know the churches in the New Testament had membership is because they had a formal exclusion process.
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Well, if you don't let me show you, maybe go to 1 Corinthians 5.
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Maybe this will help.
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1 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul is talking to the church at Corinth.
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He's dealing with them on some issues that they've been having.
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They're allowing immorality in the church.
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And he says this and starting in verse one, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife.
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All right.
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Somehow and in some way, there has been a relationship in the church that has allowed been allowed to go on within the membership of the church and the church leadership is doing nothing about it.
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The way it is described, a man has his father's wife.
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Apparently, this is a stepmother that has left the father and is now having a relationship with the son.
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And the church is just leaving it at whatever.
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Hey, you know what? Everybody's got something, right? I mean, we got problems, right? Hey, we'll just let it be.
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That's what the church is handling.
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They're not handling it.
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So, verse two, and you are arrogant, the Apostle Paul didn't mince words, he's trying to tell you, you are arrogant, ought you not rather to mourn? Shouldn't you be heartbroken over this? You're not even dealing with it.
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You should be on your knees in prayer over it.
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You're not even addressing it.
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You ought to be weeping.
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All right.
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And he says, let him who has done this be removed from among you.
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Now, that's important because this is an act of what is commonly called and very uncommonly practiced.
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It's called church discipline.
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Who? I mean, that's just the very weight of that.
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The whole idea that a church has the right to discipline its members.
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Oh, for shame.
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It's real hard to practice now.
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You know why it's hard to practice now? Because there's churches within a stone's throw of any other church.
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There are so many churches out there that if someone in the church is found to be in sin and that person refuses to repent and the church says, we cannot let you continue to fellowship here because of your behavior within the church and your unwillingness to repent.
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Here's the thing.
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If somebody repents, we accept them.
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We forgive them.
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We seek their rebuilding.
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But if somebody says, I'm just going to keep on keeping on.
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Well, we can't allow that to grow and fester and become a cancer within the church.
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So we invite you to leave.
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But in 2013, they walk out of one door, walk into another and the other church is glad to have them.
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We don't care if you're living in sin.
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We don't care what you're doing.
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We don't care what kind of sin you bring in with you because we want numbers, right? So it's a little harder for it to have any effect today.
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But that's what this is.
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It's a picture of church discipline.
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And here's the thing.
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It is impossible to practice church discipline without church membership.
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It's impossible to practice church discipline without church membership.
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So the very fact that the Apostle Paul is calling for church discipline is a demonstration of the fact that the early church, from the very outset of the church, there was an understanding of who were members and who were not.
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Thus, church membership is biblical.
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But here's the thing.
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The Apostle Paul didn't invent church discipline.
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Who invented church discipline? Who invented church discipline? It's OK, you can answer.
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Well, thank you.
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True.
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I'm going to go you one better.
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That was Jesus.
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It was God.
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Jesus invented church discipline because it was in Jesus's words where he said, if your brother sins against you, you go to him privately.
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And if he refuses to repent, you take two or three witnesses with you for guilt is established on the on the on the witness of two or three witnesses.
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And you take two or three with you and you seek for him to repent.
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And yet if he doesn't repent, even on the encouragement of the two or the three, you bring him before the church.
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And then the church is to treat him like a Pharisee or tax collector, one who's put out the assembly.
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All right.
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I'm sorry, tax collector, not a Pharisee, a tax collector, a sinner, one who's put out of assembly.
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So Jesus established this concept.
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He established church discipline as such.
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He established church membership because you can't be put out of something that you were never put into.
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You can't be dismembered from something you were never membered into.
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Maybe dismemberment is the wrong word.
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But the point is, there's a formal exclusion process.
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Thus, there must be a formal inclusion process.
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We understand that the man in first Corinthians five is being put out.
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He was a member of the body indicating he had made a commitment to Jesus verbally.
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He had made a commitment to the church verbally.
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He was likely baptized.
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He was likely brought before the church and confirmed he was likely received communion with the rest of the church.
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And here's the thing.
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That's not the only place that we find this kind of thing.
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From the very earliest part of the church, we see records kept.
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Think of Acts chapter two and verse forty one.
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So those who received his word were baptized and they were added to that day, three thousand souls or about three thousand souls.
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Right there is an indication of early record keeping within the church.
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Acts two forty six.
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Later on in that same chapter and day by day, adding the temple or attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes.
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They received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.
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And the Lord added to their number day by day.
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Those who were being saved, God was constantly adding to the number of the church right at the very beginning.
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And then in Acts four and verse four.
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But many of those who had heard the word believed in the number of the men came to about five thousand.
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So we see there's record keeping going on in the church.
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There's an understanding of who's a part of the church, who's not a part of the church, who is a part of the church, the person who has who has confessed the Lord Jesus Christ, who is repentant of their sins, who have gone through the waters of baptism, demonstrating their faith.
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These are members of the church and they're visible.
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Members of the church.
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And they're members of the visible church, and the key to all this is that church membership is a biblical concept.
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It indicates the Bible indicates a method of entrance, which is confession of faith, commitment to Christ and, of course, baptism as a demonstration of that faith.
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So based on that, based on just the scriptural indication that church membership is biblical, let's go to the second question.
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How has church membership been misunderstood? How has the purpose of church membership been misunderstood? Well, I think that the one thing that has really damaged the whole concept of church membership is that in the last 200 years, the whole idea of church membership has become very Americanized.
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Now, I'm not anti-American.
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I'm pretty pro-American, you know, I live here.
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But I'm going to say this.
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There are things that we as Americans appreciate, that we as Americans accept as natural and good that are not found in the pages of Scripture in regard to the church.
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For instance, we as Americans believe in a democracy.
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One man, one vote, right? That's what we are as Americans, one man, one vote.
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And what has happened in the church is the church has become a democracy where God is just one more vote among however many people are going to vote.
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The love of God doesn't need your vote.
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He has already said what is and what ain't.
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Excuse my use of the term.
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I mean, he has already said it.
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His word has already proclaimed it.
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And the whole idea that the church is just this, is a town council meeting.
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Because, I mean, you think about how most churches operate when they have their business meetings, it's town council.
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Everybody's got to have their turn to talk.
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Doesn't matter if what they say is biblical or not.
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They got to have their turn to say it.
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And then everybody gets a vote.
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Doesn't matter if it's biblical or not.
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But, you know, that's what church membership is to a lot of people.
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It's becoming a part of an organization wherein I get voting rights.
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Beloved, that's a messed up view of the whole idea.
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It's a confused view of biblical church membership.
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It is an absolutely unbiblical view of why you join the church.
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But yet it's the view many people have.
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I'm going to join there.
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I'll get to participate now.
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I'll go to the business meetings, I'll vote and have my say.
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Beloved, that's not biblical at all.
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Mark Dever, by the way, Mark Dever has been very influential in helping me prepare this series.
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If you're not familiar with Mark, he has Capitol Hill Church.
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He's up in Washington, D.C., so I pray for him.
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I wouldn't want to live up there, but he's got a church up there.
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And this is what he says in his book.
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He says, To many people, church membership is simply is a simple formality that gives us the right to vote at the annual business meetings and might even give us a sense of ownership in the program.
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That's why we join the church.
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That's what people see it as.
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Now, some of you might disagree, you might say, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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That's not the way I see church membership.
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I'm not saying that's the way you see church membership.
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I'm saying that's the way a lot of people see church membership, because that's the way church membership has been misunderstood.
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I'm glad if it's not the way you see church membership, because that ain't the way it's supposed to be.
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Do you know what church membership is, beloved? Do you know what it actually is? It's very simple.
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Church membership is a covenant.
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It's a decision to covenant together with other like minded believers under the same statement of faith.
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That's what church membership is.
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We have covenanted together that we will all operate under the same statement of faith and the statement of faith should be based on scripture.
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That's why we say when you come here, you're not coming here to join the church just to be some person who sits in a pew and warms a seat.
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You're coming here to work together for the promotion of the gospel of Lord Jesus Christ as we are teaching it at Sovereign Grace Family Church.
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And we minister together under that banner of the scripture which we have affirmed in our statement of faith.
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It's an act of submission, folks.
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It's not an act of joining a club.
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We are submitting to one another under Christ.
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That's what we do when we come together.
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We submit to one another under Christ.
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It is not about entitlement.
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It is about serving Christ together.
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It's not about having a voice.
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It's about becoming one voice together that we have come together to worship Christ.
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This is our statement of faith.
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This is who we are as a church.
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And this is what we have covenanted to do.
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It's very simple.
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Church membership is about entering into a covenant relationship with a group of fellow believers who share a common conviction about the doctrines contained in the word of God.
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That's the that's the definition.
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I'll say it again.
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Church membership is about entering into a covenant relationship with a group of fellow believers who share a common conviction about the doctrines contained in the word of God.
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That's why I can't go join Ocean Way Assembly.
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I love Danny.
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Danny and I are friends.
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And I believe Danny's a Christian.
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Danny's pastor of Ocean Way Assembly.
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And I've talked about Danny before.
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Danny and I are buddies and I feel like I can do that.
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And I feel like I'm.
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But I can't join his church.
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I can't because we do not share common convictions on the doctrines of the word of God.
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So while I could go to his church for a for a music night, I could go watch a play at his church, I can go have my son do upward basketball at his church.
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I could not submit myself and my family to the teachings of his church because there are some that I believe are unbiblical.
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And as such, I will not submit myself to that.
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So I will tell you, if you are looking for a church, know that that is one of the things you should be looking for.
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Can I submit to what this church teaches? That's a very important question.
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That's why, you know, there's some of you that came here and it took you six months, eight months, a year before you joined the church.
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God bless you because you didn't make a hasty decision.
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Maybe a year was a little long, but I mean, but you made a decision based on one question.
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Can I come and submit to what is being taught and grow here? Do I have the same convictions as what is here? Am I willing to be taught? Am I willing to learn together, grow together? All of these things is part and parcel of what it means to be a member of the church.
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It's not about voting.
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Who cares about voting? As long as we're doing what the word of God says.
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That's what matters.
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Doesn't matter what color the carpets are.
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It doesn't matter how high the chair molding is or where we put the sound room.
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You know, we have people that we put in charge of making those decisions and we trust God to to encourage that those decisions will be made right.
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And all those decisions matter in a small sense.
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You know, I think Pat Steed has the worst job in the church.
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Poor thing.
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She has to watch over the money and the whole executive committee.
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But she and Lee, they're the treasurer and assistant treasurer.
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Boy, I don't want that job, but I'm glad they do it.
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They're great at it.
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But the point is, ultimately.
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What we do in the church is not governed by how we vote, what we do in the church is governed by what this says.
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It's got to be that's what it means to be a church member.
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I'm submitting to the word of God as it's understood in this church and as it's taught.
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It's very simple.
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So let's go to question number three and we'll begin to draw to a close here.
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Question three, why is the membership important? We understand that it's biblical.
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That makes it ultimately important.
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We understand it's been misunderstood.
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But why is it important? Well, number one.
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And very simply, it honors Christ.
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Pastor Hill, why do you think it honors Christ? Turn to Ephesians five and I'll show you why it honors Christ.
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Ephesians chapter five.
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Most of us think about Ephesians five and we think about husbands and wives, but that's that's the context here.
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Ephesians five, verse twenty five.
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Jesus is expressing to husbands how husbands ought to love their wives.
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I may preach this verse again Father's Day, but husbands love your wives as what? As Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.
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Beloved, there are many people in this world that say, you know what? I love Jesus, but I hate the church.
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Shame on you because don't you dare tell me you love me, but you hate my wife.
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But we ain't friends.
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I think you may have heard that I've said that before, but I'll say it again.
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Tell me you love me and you hate my wife.
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Yeah, we have established a difficult bridge to go over.
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And yet here the text of the Bible tells us that the very bride of Christ is the church that he gave himself up for her.
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Church is a very important place.
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It's a very important group of people because the church is not a place, by the way, the church is people.
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Sovereign Grace Family Church.
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If every one of these walls fell down, if every one of our if all this carpet burned up, if this whole if this whole area was taken over by eminent domain and turned into a Walmart, Sovereign Grace Family Church would still exist because it's the people, not the place.
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We are the people for whom Christ died and ultimately were his bride.
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So it honors Christ to be a part of this people.
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Number two, why is church membership important? First, it honors Christ.
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But second, through church membership, we benefit one another.
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And by extension, others benefit us.
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It's the last place I'm going to have you go today.
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Go to what? First Corinthians 12, we'll end here.
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First Corinthians chapter 12, through church membership, we benefit each other and by extension, others benefit us.
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First Corinthians chapter 12, go down to verse 21.
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This is the Apostle Paul speaking, he says, The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet.
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I have no need of you.
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On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.
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And on those parts of the body that are that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which are more presentable parts do not require.
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But God has so composed the body, by the way, the church is the body.
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God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members, that's all of us, may have the same care for one another.
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If one member suffers, all suffer together.
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If one member is honored, all rejoice together.
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Now, you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
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Beloved, this cannot be fulfilled without the local church.
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This section of the text could not possibly be fulfilled if everybody said, you know what? I'll just do church from home.
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I'll stay separated from other Christians.
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I'll be the lone wolf believer.
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This passage could not be fulfilled.
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So I leave you with it, with this thought.
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It's very simple.
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You are the body of Christ.
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I like where he says here, if one member suffers, all suffer together.
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We know what he's talking about.
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Think back just a few weeks ago, Mr.
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Loris died.
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Didn't we all have broken hearts for Ron and his family? That's what the church is.
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Community of believers, we share the same convictions, we share the same beliefs in the word of God.
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And we come together and worship together.
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We hurt together.
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And we rejoice together.
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As ministers.
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In the body of Christ.
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Beloved, the church is important, membership is important, being a part of this body is important, both biblically and practically as a believer.
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We need each other.
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Let's pray.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you for this awesome opportunity to have studied your word together.
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I do pray, O Lord, that you have encouraged your people with it.
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I pray, O Lord, that you'll move us in a better direction that throughout this series of sermons where we begin to look at what the church should expect from its members and what the members should expect from the church.
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I pray that you'll use this time to encourage your people.
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And I pray, O Lord, that we would never forget.
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The value and the importance that the church has in the world.
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In Jesus name, we pray.
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Amen.
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Stand with us now as we sing, and if you have a need for prayer, please come.