Marks of a Healthy Church 7: Church Membership 2/27/22

Acts chapter 11 we're going to be in verses 1 through 18 today we are now well into this series marks of a healthy church this is going to take us all the way to easter and then we got our easter services during holy week that's what we call the easter services we will have our palm sunday service and then we were

We're going to have a communion service on that thursday night it'll be for about a half an hour and then a good friday service and then of course resurrection sunday and so you know as people who love the Lord Jesus Christ and we celebrate his resurrection that's how we're going to do it this year may not be the same next year we'll see but then after that we're going to be in the book of Daniel and so we've got those books ordered for you guys and so you guys know as we go through a book of the Bible we just give y'all you know the book and y'all can take notes and all that kind of stuff and of course those are those are yours to keep and so we're excited to be able to do that of course we won't give those out until march so right now we are in the middle of the series marks of a healthy church and it's it's really important series one to do this last year but you know covet so many people getting sick and all that kind of stuff and we just said you know we're gonna wait until kind of the social distancing really starts to die down last week I taught I preached a hard message on Biblical role of elders deacons the congregation and this week we were talking about church membership when I was much younger I didn't understand church membership I viewed church membership not as unbiblical but anti-anti-Biblical you know I said well that's just a western thing it's it's not something that's necessary and all that kind of stuff and I wrestle with those questions of okay what is the church because I had a friend of mine his name was tomlay he was from mongolia and he said well

Cody we do church membership where where I grew up I said really he said yeah exposure to culture teaches you all sorts of new things and he said yeah you know if I were to describe it to you just by asking some questions could we go through it together I said sure he said well what is a church if church membership isn't Biblical then why is membership part of the language of Scripture that was a pretty tough argument you know it doesn't need to be a formal process you know and are you willing to change your view based upon Scripture of course as we debate if you've ever gotten into a debate with anyone and like you're like you're a Christian right I'm gonna assume that most of us in here aren't if you're not hope that you encounter Christ today that he changes your life but I'm assuming that most of us are Christians and I'm assuming that most of us because we love Christian that because we love Jesus and we want to be right if we get into a debate what we do is we often try oftentimes try to find Scripture that just supports our position anyone ever done that before where you just yeah all right there's like four honest people and the Bible says that we're all liars so okay but you know here's the thing is that I started searching the Scriptures with my friend who was a lot more mature than I was and obviously from a very different culture and so I wrestled with it and I would bring all these passages I'm like see it doesn't take formal church membership and he would say see

This is where you're wrong and this is why Scripture says so and so I grew in that area and this is coming from a guy that grew up in you know very anti-establishment I mean total not church non-church background you know was I was I write in saying that you can be a Christian not be a church member absolutely just like I was writing saying that it took me about two years to get baptized you know why because I didn't think that you had to be baptized nor be a Christian could I be an obedient Christian and not be baptized no I was totally immature in that and so I would encourage you maybe that you're here today and maybe you are struggling through some of these questions and issues that we've been going through the marks of a healthy church just allow Scripture to guide you that's just what I want and so today as we look at this passage come in and come at it with an open mind and open heart just asking Lord reveal to me what you want me to learn today on tuesday night I was it was after basketball practice I was sitting down it was about eight o'clock at night and my son Malachi he was reading from the book of numbers and it was where the nation of israel wasn't allowed to go into the promised land because they had refused to follow God's explicit commands Malachi he looks at me he goes dad why wouldn't they just go isn't God's way the best way and that's one of the reasons why I love working around children so much is because they just get straight to the heart of the issue like they don't even mess around with so many things that we like to mess around with they just get right after it I love it

And it's true because and it's observant because for many Christians you know we want to continue on our traditions we want to continue in our own beliefs and our own customs and our own desires what we're familiar with but we forget that the call of Christ is the call to die to ourselves I'll say that again the call of Christ is the call to die to ourselves that he might live within us and that we might conform that he might conform us into his image and so let's talk about that question of church real quick because at church it can mean a lot of different things firstly it can be used in the catholic sense when I say catholic I mean lowercase c right meaning universal that's weird to hear a southern baptist minister talk about catholic but that's literally the latin term it means universal so when we look at the apostles creed and it says we believe in the Holy Spirit one holy catholic church it literally means universal the unseen church throughout the ages saints of past and saints present saints future all of the saints for all time throughout all cultures the church that's what the church is and that's what it means in its proper sense with the capital c when we say that Christ died for his church we mean that all nations and all tongues all who believe and so secondly can be used in a cultural sense in the church because there is a church culture isn't there and every church culture is a little different and we see it even in a secular society you see some comedians getting famous with some semblance of Christianity steve harvey's a great example of that you know he

Takes the Lord's name in vain and everybody's kind of raucous laughter and stuff like that you see it on t-shirts like y'all need Jesus right you know it's funny yeah I saw someone I don't think it was any of you so I'll share this but like the coffee mug that says I love Jesus and I cuss a little you know like that's what we should be striving for as Christians I'm saying that because there is a church culture and when we use it in that sense like the church it's meant in like the worst sense but the sense in which we're talking about the church we're using it in the local sense meaning like just that there is the church gathered here right now we are the church if you are in Christ you are a part of the church there there's a church down the street at Bible baptist and there's a church down at heartland and in a church canopy and there's churches all around us these little little units of believers that come together to worship the Lord and they sing these songs praise the Lord and it's in this sense that we understand church membership in the local church because local church memberships mean means that you visibly identify yourself with a local church body with a local church body now imagine for a moment that you have a daughter okay your daughter loves a young man that young man says that he loves your daughter and so they begin dating young man grows up and he begins to treat her like he would his own wife now are you offended as a parent I hope that you are I hope that you're offended you ought to

Be offended he hasn't taken the steps to treat her like a wife and that's what it's like for people who want to be a part of a local church without really joining themselves to it and here's the difference though the local church is for all believers which means that it is a group thing and being a church member means that you join with other believers and you unite yourself to them under a common doctrinal statement for us it's the baptist faith message of 2000 we unite ourselves under that under the authority of the local leadership that the Lord has here at this church to accomplish the task of Gospel proclamation which means that there are certain responsibilities that you and I have towards each other as church members and that's what we're going to talk about is four responsibilities of church membership and so if you would stand with me in honor of God's word as we read the book of acts chapter 11 verses 1 through 18. God's word says this now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout judea heard that the gentiles also had received the word of God so when Peter went up to jerusalem the circumcision party criticized him saying you were to you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them but Peter began and explained it to them in order I was in the city of joppa praying and in a trance I saw a vision something like a great sheet descending being let down from heaven by its four corners and it came down to me looking at it closely I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air and I heard a voice saying to me rise Peter kill and eat

But I said by no means Lord for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth but the voice answered a second time from heaven what God has made clean do not call common this happened three times and all was drawn up again into heaven and behold at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were in which we were sent to me from caesarea and the spirit told me to go with them making no distinction these six brothers also accompanied me and we entered the man's house and he told us how he had seen an angel stand in his house and say send to joppa and bring simon who is called Peter he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved you and all your household and as I began to speak the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning and I remembered the word of the Lord how he said John baptized with water but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit if then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ who was I that I could stand in God's way when we when they heard these things they fell silent and they glorified God saying then to the gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life so God we do thank you for your word and we just pray that it would have its work today in our lives and I pray that you would move us toward obedience for some of us it's becoming church members for some of us it's being better church members and living out these responsibilities Lord help us to rightly apply your word to our lives that we might see

Just as it says at the end here that you are glorified and so we love you in Jesus name amen well give you a little context here acts 11 is after acts 10. Big stuff but in acts 10 there was a major major event in church history arguably for those of us who aren't jews one of the most significant ones in that the Holy Spirit that salvation was not just of the jews it was also for all who would believe for anyone who would call upon the name of the Lord will be saved is what the Scripture says and so when we look at acts chapter 11 know that it's in the context of a major paradigm shifting event but we should know a little bit of the context here firstly there's this guy named Cornelius Cornelius he's he lives in the city called joppa and joppa it's on the coast of the mediterranean if you could throw up that map for me please joppa is that northernmost or southern most star that you see there which is excuse me peters and joppa and you got Cornelius that's in caesarea this is caesarea by the sea not caesarea philippi caesarea philippi is the place where Jesus went this is a major port city it was built in 22a bc by herod the great who was a major architect during that time they called him herod the great for a reason because he was a world-renowned architect it was a really rough spot and he created one of the largest seaports in the mediterranean which was right here now caesarea by the sea was also the place where pontius pilate spent most of his time he would take his take his crew and once a year they would go down to jerusalem which is down south of there I can't really see it on the map there you see

The mount of olives it's just to the west there at the mount of olives but that's where he would travel to and he would go and he would that's that's the route that he would take when Jesus was entering into jerusalem on that on that palm sunday but anyways I need to I'm kind of going going around there a little bit but we need to remember that this was a very roman city it was a key city in early Christianity housed one of the largest libraries from the ancient world there were early church fathers who actually authored many of their works there like jerome he wrote many of his works there but it is in the city of caesarea that the birth of the gentile church not there is a gentile church but that salve that gentiles were grafted into the church now there was this guy named Cornelius in Cornelius he was a roman centurion now in order to be a roman centurion you had to have complete some magnificent act of valor meaning like on the battlefield you had to slay a general by yourself or can you show that picture of a centurion there thank you yeah this is a recreation you see obviously the definitively the big puff on the head I don't even know what the technical term is for it but you see these guys they were they were leaders of leaders they would have about 80 to 100 legionnaires underneath them and they would in order to be a centurion they had to do major active valor or they could even be the first through the wall and survive that was an act of valor good enough to be a centurion so this guy

All right that is obviously very well respected among the jews Cornelius he was a manly man he was a brave man and he was a major centurion in a major roman area and yet he feared the Lord we don't know how he became familiar with the God of the Hebrews but we knew that he feared the Lord we knew that he knew the Lord he was a part of the italian cohort which means that he was like a romanly and so he was even though he was like the chiefest of all romans he worshipped the Lord God and God revealed to him by special revelation you need to sin for this man Peter and Peter he just recounted exactly everything that just happened but there was a big problem the gentiles responded to the Gospel how on earth do they hear the Gospel and word about this got out that these gentile people they were saved the whole household was saved these roman centurions and all of his people that are underneath him his household they've gotten saved who shared the Gospel with these gentiles and this is what the church used to do they would they would find these problems they would get together and they would talk them out and it's something that needs to be rediscovered is hashing out issues the first responsibility of church members is to assemble together to assemble together if you're taking notes write that down assemble together when we look at assembling together many times we think just on the Lord's day during service which is good and it's right for Christians to do Christians need to be people of the book and people of worship

And people of praise and people of fellowship and people of generosity and people of serving we're commanded to be those kind of people but we're also called to be people of assembling together to sort out issues you see this in acts chapter six it was an issue in the church the widows were being overlooked the greek speaking hebrew jewish women were being overlooked in the daily distribution they assembled the congregation together the elders they put forth a plan and they said what do you all think about this and they were able to make adjustments and that's that's exactly what the church is supposed to do and it's functioning and so you have Peter you have the apostles you have the brothers and that word brothers here in this passage it doesn't just mean male believers it means sibling believers we know that because if you look throughout the new testament like in first Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 25 Paul he uses this word brothers pray for us now he's not just saying hey only women only men can pray for us he's saying no like the family of God pray for us or James 4 11 it says do not speak evil against one another brothers he's not saying that women get permission to speak evil against one another right he's saying all of us are not to do that as siblings as brothers and sisters in Christ and so we can understand that men and women are gathered together to talk about this major issue who is salvation for remember that salvation it was only for the jews the first Christians were jews but they continued going to their jewish

Synagogues and they evangelized more jews but the problem was that these jewish rabbis they created these crazy extensive extra-Biblical laws that pretty much they allowed for people to like make trades and business dealings with the gentiles but there could be no meaningful relationship with lost people you couldn't go into someone's house much less sit down and eat inside their home it was considered unclean it was strictly forbidden it was viewed as a as cultural sin and as a result they viewed man's laws as authoritative as the Lord's laws and this could have prevented the Gospel from spreading anywhere outside of jerusalem it should cause us to pause and it should cause us to examine whether or not we hold to any laws that aren't found in God's word of course Peter he knew the Lord's voice so when the Lord spoke to Peter after spending many times with him and he is commanded by the Lord to go and preach the Gospel he obeys but the church didn't understand that yet so the second issue here is second responsibility is that they talked out issues with the leaders now in the early church there were divisions lucky describes one here as the circumcision party the circumcision party it was not a it wasn't ever used in like a positive light in the new testament they were they were critical of the apostle Peter remember that the apostles they weren't infallible in their personhood but you know you just you don't do that to like your church leaders you don't be critical of them in that kind of way it's never to anyone's benefit to do that I do want you to note though that this

Group they did wind up changing their mind because they wind up talking it out with their leader because this is a Mark of a healthy church talking things out and third responsibility they were gracious in their understanding they were gracious in their understanding you know Christians have been known at times to be kind of ungracious towards each other I'm glad we can laugh about that but when Christians are not gracious towards each other do we think that glorifies the Lord do you think that shows a lost world love that you have for your brother or sister and isn't Jesus say that they will know that we are Christians by our love for one another maybe you've harbored feelings of ill will or you simply try to just look over it and it just never never works you need to go to your brother or your sister and you need to talk it out in the corinthian church we read this at the beginning of Paul's letter in verse 10 he says I appealed to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree that there be no divisions among you but that you be united in the same mind in the same judgment for it has been reported to me by chloe's people that there is quarreling among you my brothers I mean it doesn't take long for him to get to the heart of the issue at that church that there was disunity and division it's sad when there's division Paul he always emphasizes unity we sang about unity we joined at the communion table

In unity Paul said this in Ephesians chapter four verses one through seven I therefore a prisoner for the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness with patience bearing with one another in love eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace there is one body and one spirit just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call one Lord one faith one baptism one God and father of all who is over all and through all and in all but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift and just as Christ is gracious to you and I we also must be gracious to one another in our understanding we should extend it to others so when someone scowls at you or maybe they say something unkind maybe take a moment and consider what might be going on in their lives you don't know if they have a health problem you don't know if they have a child that's just in a wayward path and they're just misdirecting their anger or frustration you don't know if they need someone to come alongside of them and pray with you don't know and the only way that you do know is by being gracious and talking it out with your brother or sister and I'm convinced that the Lord can do a wonderful work when Christians work together in unity amen and just as Peter he understood their accusation right he knew that culture they said you went to uncircumcised men and you ate with them and he is very gracious to them in his understanding with them he says yes that is a total cultural no-no but

Here is why I did it and he recounts that the gentiles they receive the Holy Spirit he goes through everything from the vision to the call to sharing the message to them receiving the Holy Spirit and this is the fourth responsibility is that we are called to be submissive to instruction ultimately submissive to the word of God it's really the final authority and things pertaining to life and spiritual truth it doesn't matter what pastor cody says what is what does the word of God say amen I heard that but it's true look at verses look at what happens as a result of this look at verses 17 and 18 look at what God does if then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ who was I that I could stand in God's way that's just a wonderful application of common sense isn't it they receive the Holy Spirit like we did on pentecost who am I to stand in God's way and when they heard these things they fell silent they could have argued but instead they allowed for their leaders to lead and what happened was that they glorified God and they said then to the gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life think about the bigness of God at that moment that God's salvation was not just for this little nation people group but was now to every tribe every tongue every nation all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved and now this gives them total mission like

Focus how many people in the world need Jesus and this led to greater unity in the church and it led to the Lord Jesus being worshiped and allowed for the Gospel to go to every single part of the known world and it still goes even to this day now Mark dever he's a baptist preacher who is a pastor at capitol hills baptist church in washington dc he wrote a little book on church health and he actually writes about why churches should have membership formal membership and why Christians should formally join a church now you know if you're a student at ethnos we love you we want to partner with you while you're here for those two years we know that you're leaving and so we want to be the best local church as possible for those two or three years that you're here because we love you and we want to equip you as you go out into the world for those of us who are residents here you know this is a good time for us to kind of perk up our ears and know why do we have formal church membership because God's been doing something I don't know if you guys have been aware at all or if you look at our church or anything like that but just look around real quick just take a moment and just look around okay I saw a picture about from about five years ago four years ago and it was of our service and I'm not saying anything okay in a derogatory way okay but about eighty percent of the congregation all had that they were either white or bald okay now I'm not saying anything bad I'm not

Saying anything bad please don't don't mishear me extended me that graciousness that we were talking about a little bit okay what I do mean is that when I came on we said that we were going to be intentional about reaching the next generation amen we said that we were going to do that and as we look around look at the young families look at the people that the Lord is bringing into our church yeah there's growing pains there's going to be and as people are younger more immature in their walk we're going to have those struggles and I thank the Lord for those struggles we have to lean into those struggles and we have to partner ourselves alongside of these folks who need godly grandparents godly examples of what it means to come alongside we still need those folks that are balding with their white hair and stuff because I need mentors these younger people need mentors and so I ask for you to find your person ask them say hey do you have someone investing in you and I promise you that you're going to see the Lord do some amazing things and anyways that was kind of a little path that took but so anyways Mark dever he identifies several different reasons why churches should do church membership and the first thing that he says is to assure ourselves of salvation to assure ourselves now church membership does not save okay does not save it doesn't matter how long you've been a member of a church does not save the only place that your name

Needs to appear is in the lamest book of life it's the only place however it is good to have assurance of other Christians coming alongside of you who can say yes I do see this evidence in your life that you are indeed a follower of Jesus Christ that is good and it's right for us to do and just as Christians see evidence of Christ in you it does give us assurance it also helps that we are united to his church really by his blood by the blood of Jesus so visibly we join in it in the Gospel proclamation by saying this is the local body that I belong to this is the church that holds me accountable this is the church that I share in the work of the ministry with and I submit to their leadership secondly it functions to evangelize the world our church is functionally a missionary organization if you look around at our church I don't know if y'all many of y'all didn't come to the business meeting you should be at business meetings if you're a member you should be at business meetings and you would see what the Lord has been doing november we were able to meet budget and actually go past it december did the same thing january we were over we spent 28 000 and we brought in 53 amen which shows that we're being very responsible with our funds while also God is equipping us for something and we need to understand what is it that God is equipping us for is it to bring on full-time children's ministry director is it to give more to our missionaries

That are overseas already is it to find new missionaries that we can partner alongside and support we don't know right now and so we pray and we ask for your wisdom but one of the functions of being a church member is to evangelize the world and when you join with the church you agree that it's important to do so in a united front and there's partners in the Gospel in Gospel proclamation thirdly it's to expose false Gospels when you join together with Christians in membership it shows we're not some self-righteous like I can do this on my own like you can't you can't go to war on your own we're not called to do that but we are be together we need the Gospel we need other other and we need other believers that are willing to sit down and speak hard truths into our lives when we join a local church it means I'm submitting myself to this local church body doesn't mean that we agree on everything but it does mean that we agree to speak the Gospel to each other fourthly the edification of the church by joining a local body you agree that you're not perfect and that you need to be encouraged and built up a couple of weeks ago I had a brother here at the church who came into the church office and he said cody I need to talk with you about something I said okay he said I've seen through your preaching this red flag this red flag this red and I go that's that's some red flags he said yeah so how are we gonna how are we gonna proceed from there I said you know what

Those are red flags those are red flags that I need to deal with and I appreciate you bringing those to my attention and I want you to hold me accountable in those things his main worry was you know that through the preaching that may not be inviting God into the picture as much preaching a solid Gospel except really bringing it home and I appreciate that because I need that and you need that too it's okay to hold each other accountable right amen no one likes to talk about it but if I can do it you can too we shouldn't be surprised when the church has problems because people have problems I've got problems you got problems and so when a church has we need to realize that God is still working on us he's still working on me he's still working on you and he's going to continue working in you and on you until he is done with you and when he's done he's going to take you home we look forward to that day but not until he's done with us fifthly to glorify God I mean didn't we read John 13 earlier where it says now is the son of man glorified and God is glorified in him if God is glorified in him God will also glorify him and himself and glorify him at once little children yet a little while I am with you will seek me and just as I said to the jews so now I also say to you where I am going you cannot come a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you also are to love one another by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another see the glory of God is inextricably linked to our love for one another

And we can do that best by being united God is building his church then we're bricks in the church if God is growing his church then we're members of the body we're branches on the vine we are sheep in the flock church membership it is a living reflection of this chur of this truth that we're called to be for one another and with one another it's not a call to inflate our roles but if you're a Christian that lives here and you're looking for a church family you should know a little bit about the process we receive church members firstly based upon baptism a statement of faith transferring membership from your church but before someone can be a member you should meet with myself and or when we move to elders and elder and you should go through a new member's class this allows for us to hear your testimony to hear your beliefs to know if you're on the same page as us and then you come forward at the end of a service and you say hey you know we've we've gone through the class we've talked with the pastor and now church we submit ourselves to you and you as the church body church members you get to receive them into the fellowship right then and there and we appreciate the gusto from our regular attenders you know that vote wholeheartedly on those things but that's really for members yeah head hand heart I want you to know that committing yourself to a local church is Biblical it's not anti-Biblical it's not unbiblical and that took me a long time to get past as a young believer

It's throughout the Scriptures and I would encourage you to find a local church body that you unite yourself with and I pray and I hope that's that's ours because I think we've got a solid church and I want you to consider joining our church you know if you've never gone through a new member's class that's kind of a good first step meet with me is another one but I would encourage you to take those steps maybe you've gone through all of it you just never have taken that final step take the final step and heart I want you to believe that when we are united it makes God joyful make my joy complete that you'll be all of one like mind [Music] may we all be unified in the calling that he's placed on our lives to proclaim the Gospel to a world that desperately needs it not just abroad but especially here in camdenton where people need to see first baptist church as a beacon of hope and light a world that desperately needs it so God we do pray that you would help us [Music] God to submit to you to love you and to serve you God there's so many areas that we bring before you each and every day but right now we bring to you our church Lord we desire for your spirit to be on us to be among us and Lord we do invite you into the picture now we do ask that you would do something amazing and something wonderful in our in all of our lives or whether there's habitual sins or maybe we just we need to take that next step God we just submit it all over to you we ask for you to do incredible and

Amazing things that you would just conform our church to the image that you have for us in Jesus precious name amen let's stand together in worship [Music] what is our hope in life and death Christ alone what is our only confidence that our souls to him be long who holds our days within his hand what comes apart from his command and what will keep us to the end the love of Christ in which we stand oh sing hallelujah [Music] our hope springs eternal oh sing hallelujah now and ever we confess Christ our hope in life and death [Music] amen well church remember that we are not the just dispersing now we are the church going and that God he has appointed for you to have interactions throughout this week that you might shine the light of Jesus into someone's life let's go from here with that mission and so God we do thank you for all that you've done and all that you're going to do and Lord I pray that you would continue to work in our lives conform us into the image of your son Jesus Christ that we might know you better glorify you more and that people would would see the salt and light in our lives in Jesus name amen one quick thing tonight at 5 30 we're have is it five o'clock we are having a very brief prayer service for ukraine and so if you would like to be here that tonight at

Five o'clock that'd be great thanks