11 through 22, Ephesians 2, 11 to 22. After you've located that, you may want to turn in the back to page 184 of your forms and prayer book to article 28, the obligations of church members. Let me just remind you, Guido de Bray, when he was writing this, was trying to help the king of Spain understand the faith of these believers in the lowlands, the Netherlands area, that he, the king, was at this time persecuting. And he was trying to help him understand, again, what it was they believed. And so he's spending quite a bit of time, isn't he, on the church and helping this king understand the teaching of the Scriptures concerning the church and its need to be members of it and to meet together, which of course, you know, was being persecuted at the time. So it's always in that backdrop. Try to, as you're reading the Belgian Confession, always remember there's a lot of blood on these pages. There's a lot of persecution going on here, a lot of deaths. Whole villages are being wiped out for naming the name of Christ. So I think it's just always helpful to remember that. So we're trying tonight to look at the obligations of church membership. And we're going to move to our familiar text in Ephesians. You'll remember this as we studied it. Paul is helping us understand in these texts, you know, how the Gentiles have been engrafted into Christ, engrafted in, and he's comparing often the Gentiles with the Jews, and so that's what's working here. Let's take a look at this Ephesians 2, 11 to 22 text. Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember, key word there, of course. Remember that you are at that time separated from Christ. You were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. You were strangers to the covenants of promise. having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off, had been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace who has made both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of two, so making peace. And, excuse me, might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross. thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who are far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. So then you're no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Key phrase for us tonight. What are you? You are a member of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him, you also were being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. The word of the Lord to us tonight from this text. Now I'll read to us Article 28. We believe that since this holy assembly and congregation is the gathering of those who are saved, and there is no salvation apart from it, no one ought to withdraw from it, content to be by himself, regardless of his status or condition. But all people are obliged to join and unite with it, keeping the unity of the church by submitting to its instruction and discipline, by bending their necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ. Look at how that's put. Not to the king, but to the yoke of Jesus Christ. And by serving to build up one another. I'm not saying not to be submissive to the government, of course not. But you see the language here. according to the gifts of God has given them as members of each other in the same body, and to preserve this, very key word now, unity more effectively. It is the duty of all believers, according to God's word, to separate themselves from those who do not belong to the church. in order to join this assembly wherever God has established it, even if civil authorities and royal decrees forbid and death and physical punishment result. And so, all who withdraw from the church or do not join it, act contrary to God's ordinance. The word of the Lord to us tonight and now from our Belgic confession. Well, congregation, we could title this sermon tonight, How to Put a Smile in the Heart of Your New Pastor. We could title it that way, maybe. But the obligations of church members is not about your pastor's blood pressure. or your elder's ability to sleep at night, or your deacon's wondering if they're going to be able to pay the bills. That's not what we're focused on. If we spoke with a broad paintbrush, we would say the obligation of every church member who names the name of the Lord Jesus Christ coming in profession of their faith, everyone's obligation is to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. So if you're looking for any clear description of our obligation as Christians tonight, you can put that down. and — broad paintbrush, as Jesus often spoke — and to love one another. So there you've got it. End of sermon. Amen. Let's go home. There it is. But I did find that the Belgic was very specific tonight, so I thought, I'll get a little specific too. We'll look at some of the little things that make up our obligations as church members. I think I came up with over 12 of them. If you're a note taker tonight, maybe it's 12, maybe it's 13, I don't know, something. The obligation of church membership boils down to how do I engage in the body of Christ, in a way that gives glory to the God that saved me, and support and encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ. We have an obligation to come together in unity. Look at the unity that's in this text. Look at what God is working to do with the Gentile and with the Jew, bringing the two together to make one, so making peace. So a question I have as a church member is how do I engage in this body of believers to bring about love and unity in our midst to the glory of God? How do I gather with God's people and express my full partnership in the work of this body? For we are not just called to worship, but we are also called to work. How do I join in to the worship of God with my heart, soul, mind, and strength? How do I gather with the people and learn from them so that I might better follow the Lord Jesus Christ? Because we can learn from each other here within this body of believers to encourage our faith. All of us have something to contribute in that regard. How do I recognize tonight that I am, as the old saying goes, Preaching to the choir, I thought a lot about Walker this week, preparing for this sermon. Thought a lot about you. I don't really consider myself an outsider anymore, but kinda, kinda. What I mean is this. I want to speak tonight very practically about how to come to church, how to come to a worship service, and how to act in church. and how to work in the body of Christ with the gifts God has given you. But this, speaking frankly, is one of your strengths as a fellowship. Hospitality is a strong strength of this church, but also a strong strength that you have that I take note of is your desire to come together to worship. While many churches have emptied out on Sunday nights and closed the doors altogether, This is evidence of your heart. I don't flatter you with that. I'm praising the Lord for it's his work in your heart that I see evidence of in this place. So I know I'm kind of preaching to the choir tonight when I'm talking about how to come to church, because you come to church this way. I'm not coming up with 12 new ideas. But I did want to just encourage you with what God is doing in our midst in this church. So let's speak about some of the issues regarding how we should be behaving and acting in the body of Christ. What are our obligations? Not to win God's grace and have him owe us, but to honor his name since we remember how we were and now how we are now. all because of God. I know that that fuels your desire to come and worship. I trust that's the fact. So how to come to church? Here's a few. My first one, come with humility. When you come to worship and you enter these doors and you come in here and you sit down Come with humility. You will be called to change. Sometimes you'll be comforted, but not comfortable. We have no interest in being comfortable. But we do have a great interest in being changed, don't we? Walk through those doors expecting God to speak to you. I have found, sitting in the pews with you, with other pastors here preaching, that God is speaking here. He's very merciful. His voice is powerful in this church. And I really believe it's because of humility. James tells us that if we come before the Lord with, you know, arrogance, pride, He opposes us. Boy, I don't want that. But if we come to church with humility, honesty, authenticity, a submissiveness, When we come to church recognizing that we are about to enter into a time with God, and that truth hovers over our assembly, that we are in the midst of meeting with God, great things will happen. He gives grace to the humble. Again, not because He owes grace to us, because we got humble. In fact, any humility that we might have is a result of His grace. But nonetheless, it's what the text says. He gives grace to the humble. When we come through these doors, and gather into the worship of the Lord God Almighty with a humility about ourselves, with a brokenness about ourselves if we've been hard-headed and sinning throughout the week. And we're gathering now for Him to to stab us, as it were, the double-edged sword of the Word of God into the deep marrow of our soul, to carve out our sin. If we will come humble before Him, He will do great things in our midst. And so I start out with that one. Do you admit your need for God to feed you? Do you admit your need to confess sin? Be in awe of God when you come into this place. Second, come supportive to the leadership. And again, I say you do. I didn't come up with that because I find that you don't. But if this is where we are, just kind of like joy this morning, let's bring it up here. Bring it up a notch. Come supportive to the leadership. Let's talk about a pastor. One of the things that you do here is you cheerlead your pastor. Since I've been here two years, I'll tell you that's what you do. Thank you. Support, support, support. Three key words you gotta bring to your pastor. Support, support, support. I didn't say flatter, flatter, flatter. You know, there was a pastor one time, he preached a great, powerful sermon, and he came down off the pulpit, and a lady came up to him and said, wow, that was a great sermon. And he said, ma'am, you're too late, Satan already told me that. Sometimes your pastor just needs your quiet support and encouragement. Let me remind you that your pastor is under God's judgment in a particular way. I don't want to share this with some of the young men here tonight and get them to be afraid to become a pastor, but maybe so. There was a pastor in my life by the name of Reverend Charles Cray. He was huge in my life. He really helped me learn my theology. And one night, just before he was about to come into the evening service, he got a bloody nose. He had a difficult text to preach. He was struggling with it. That's what he told me. And just before he came up to the pulpit, he got a bloody nose. So he's down in the bathroom, washing his face. He's got blood all over his hands. And he's thinking about that. And he thought of Ezekiel 3, 16. So let me read this from Ezekiel. If I say to the wicked, you shall surely die, and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person will die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness or from the wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul. Those are the words God gave Reverend Cray that night when he had this bloody nose. And he knew then, as all that blood was on his hands, that he had to go and preach faithfully the text before him. And so he did. I said earlier, when you call a pastor, you're not offering some, you know, job offer. That's not what's going on here. When you have a pastor preaching to you the Word of God, he must preach the Word of God, or his soul is in danger. So, bear that in mind as you think about your pastor. He's under the attack of Satan. How do you come to church? You come supportive to the leadership of the church. Because why? Because your pastor is under attack by Satan. Listen, I find this to be true of those who make profession of faith. All of a sudden, after you've made profession of faith, young people, You could share this later, how this is — is this not true? Satan's got you in his crosshairs. He's coming after you. He's coming. He's coming just like John 10.10 says. You want to stand up here and profess the Lord Jesus Christ? Same thing with those of you who want to bring your children up here and have them baptized. He will give you 20 reasons next week why you are a no-good parent. And it's the same thing with your pastor, or your elders, or your deacons. The minute they take a stand for the Lord Jesus Christ, the minute leadership rises up, you're in the crosshairs of Satan, like no other time before. I believe that to be true. This Satan was bold enough to attack the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you not think he will attack your pastor? The obligation of church members is to care for their pastor. He needs to study. Yeah, he needs to get out of that study too. There's always that balance, but he's got to get out of the study. He's got to get into study. 2 Timothy 4, 1, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing in His kingdom, preach the Word, Paul tells Timothy. Be ready. In season and out of season. In other words, you should just be ready to share Christ all the time. You need to reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and teaching, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching. That's not only in our culture around us, it's within the church itself. We don't want to hear it. We want to be entertained. We need to be under the preaching of God's Word, not endless entertainment to make you feel good and send you home. What's coming? What's coming is this itching ears he talks about in 2 Timothy. They will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. In other words, you better work hard, pastor. There's no room for lazy pastors in the ministry. So pray for him. He needs to work hard. You need to care for him in his difficult circumstances because he will have difficult circumstances. Paul had difficult circumstances. We saw that this morning. I'll pass that by because I hit it this morning. And then we need to be providing for the ministry of the church. When you come to church, have your tithes and offerings ready to give to the Lord. I've been in ministry where we were way behind financially. I have not seen that in this church. Last fall, I heard a comment in the council room, hey, we're a little behind on the missions fund. I think it was the missions fund, I think. And one of the deacons spoke opposite up. By Christmas time, it'll be no problem. This congregation will rise to the task. And so I kept an eye on that. Yep. Thank you for your generous giving. Third, how to come to church. Come strong. You come to church having worshiped the Lord your God all week long because it is your disciplined lifestyle to be in the Word of God. Come strong. See, if you come strong into this fellowship, if you come strong. spiritually into this fellowship, we will all get strong. But if we all show up weak because none of us are disciplined, none of us are in the Word of God, none of us are walking with the Lord Jesus Christ, none of us are professing Him in the marketplace, what do you think's gonna happen when we come together? We're just gonna be weaker. Come strong to church with your family devotions and your personal disciplines. Fourth, come rested. When you come to church on Sunday morning, come rested. In other words, get to bed on time Saturday night. Can I put it that clearly? Some of us think we can stay out till 1 o'clock in the morning and show up at church. What are we doing? Right? So again, I know I don't need to say this because you're on this. Come hungry. I put that one down. How do you get hungry? Your work. See, if we've been working for the Lord all week long, if we've been living for Jesus Christ all week long, you know what's gonna happen when we come Sunday? We're gonna come in here hungry for the word of God. We're not gonna be bored during sermons. We're gonna be taking notes and getting this into our hearts and lives because we wanna be ready to share it next week. So the best way to be hungry is to work. It's what I always found. Come focused. We're about to worship God and hear His Word. Don't lose your focus on what it is we're doing here. When you come to worship on Sunday night, get your focus right. What are we doing? I'm coming to worship God. Come expecting. I know I hammer on this. Let me hammer on it again. God is about to speak. Has He already spoken to you tonight? You're not gonna leave tonight, are you, without, come on, hearing God's word? This is what Paul's saying here, therefore remember, I don't want you to forget this, remember that you were at that time, you were separated from Christ, you were a nobody, you were a stranger, but now look at who you are, right? You take a passage like that home with you. That is meat and potatoes for a hungry Christian. I'm no longer a stranger to the covenants of promise. I'm no longer one without hope. I am no longer one without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." What a precious text. You have been brought near. come expecting God to speak to you words like this to bring you stability in your battle to walk with Christ with joy. Here's another one. Come praying. Having prayed, Saturday night, pray, God tomorrow, I'm gathering with all the saints at Walker, would you bless us as we gather? Yep, yep, yep, yep, pray that Saturday night, yep. But when you're here, be praying, be praying. I-N-G, all the time, just keep praying. God, would you speak to me right now? Before the service, during the service, after the service. Come praying. Come asking God to do great and mighty things. Come believing with faith. Come with a faith prayer. God, I know you're here and I know you love me. Come to listen with your heart and your mind. Okay, let me put it this way. Come with your body. Your posture tells a lot. Are you on the edge of your chair? Or are you sitting back? I used to preach this church, and there was one gentleman. I would start to preach, and I'd watch him. I'd watch him. He'd start to lean back. He'd close his eyes, and he'd be gone. Every Sunday, that was his posture. I don't see anybody doing that here. Thank you for a posture that says, I'm with you, my eyes are on you, I'm in this. Yes, you want me to go to that text? Okay, here we are, right? You're in this. Get into this is the point. And you do. 40% of what we communicate has been done by body language. So, for some of you, take notes, write, write, write. I have to. And what I do, you know, you can see it right here in my Bible, right here in Ephesians, I write all over my Bible. Now, some of you have got a notepad, you're writing. Good stuff. I pay better attention when I'm writing. So I got my pen out, and I'm jotting a few notes down. Yeah, I don't write everything the pastor preaches, but I'm getting some of it down. It just helps me stay engaged. Come with your children. I'd like to read to you an article It's by Dr. Kim Riddlebarger. I've rewritten some of it. I revamped this this week for us here at Walker. Can I read this to you? Come with your children. I'm talking about the little ones now. One of the things you've probably noticed about worship at Walker URC is the presence of children, lots and lots of children. Somebody told me we had 55 of them up here this morning, I don't know. Little children, squirming children, children who make noises, you may have sat next to or in front of or behind a wiggly little body intermittently struggling to keep awake or quiet, a body simultaneously plagued by a tiny bladder and an appetite big enough to consume a whole package of crackers before the sermon even starts. You've seen parents labor to keep their little ones from disrupting your worship and feeling far more embarrassed by such little infractions than they should. At times these sounds annoy you. Occasionally you find them cute. By the way, let me just slide in here and say, kids never distract me. I've learned, I'm good. So don't, parents, I just don't want you to ever feel uncomfortable. Welcome to life in a Reformed church. Theology, not convenience, informs and directs our worship. One of the central tenets of our theology is the covenant of grace. If you've witnessed a baptism here, you have seen the parents and the congregation ratify God's oath to be God to His people. Through the sign and seal of baptism, He assures us that we are His. God makes His covenant not only with those adults who can make a credible profession of faith in Jesus as their only comfort in life and in death, but also with the children of believers who cannot yet make such a profession. This simply means that baptized children are members of this church and are therefore entitled to all the blessings of the covenant, every bit as much as their parents are. So children are not the future church. They are the church today. The issue then isn't whether or not children should be in the worship service. The issue is the physical ability of children to remain in a service that runs longer than they are able to handle, particularly with me because I preach way too long. But rather than encouraging parents to train their children to sit through worship, because even though it's hard, it's the right thing to do theologically, too many churches exclude children from the service altogether. You probably noticed that in many churches, particularly seeker-orientated ones, children are viewed as a hindrance to the mood of worship, especially if it's entertainment-based. Young ones are warehoused in the nursery, then children's church, then youth services until they're mature enough to appreciate the morning performance or catch the jokes in the sermon. The message coming through all of this is not only will we entertain you, we'll entertain your kids as well. Sure, there are times when sitting next to a noisy chrome cruncher makes you want to send them and their parents to a soundproof warehouse stuffed with the latest playground equipment and videos. But a covenant church cannot see children as a hindrance to our worship, even if they do make it tough to concentrate sometimes. The question isn't whether our children should join us in worship, but how can we prepare them to join us? And it's up to the parents to prepare them, of course, with all of our support. As members of the covenant, children belong in our worship services. Children's church and other forms of diversion and entertainment are not options for us here at Walker. The children belong in the sanctuary, joining their tiny hearts and voices to those of their parents. The glorious covenantal promises which God makes to us, he makes to them as well. A nursery exists because not all infants and toddlers are ready to sit quietly through a service. We all get that. We all got great grace for that. But it also exists because people who are new to the Reformed faith need some time and space to adjust to the Reformed way of doing things. A cry room exists for those times when feeding, disciplinary matters, and the old ants in the pants need to be addressed. Sure, we may need to remove our children from the service for a time rather than allow them to disrupt the worship of others. but only for a time and always with the goal of helping them become worshipers of the living God together with all his people. I just love being up here watching the kids sing. In a covenant community, the nursery and the monitor room are not ends of themselves, places where we dump our kids so we can get away from them for a few hours. These are places where our little ones go until they are ready to sit with us. But the noises they make, the squirming they do, these are covenant sights and sounds. Annoying? Okay, sometimes. But at the same time, they remind us of God's promise to be God to us for generations to come. Baptism distinguishes our children from the children of non-Christians. Baptism includes our children in the covenant, the visible expression of which is our worship. Our children need to be in worship to learn how to worship. They should never know a moment in their lives when they were not made to feel that church and the promises of Christ belong to them as much as to their parents. From the creed to the Lord's prayer, to the confession of sin and the declaration of pardon, to the hymns and the readings, our children learn by hearing, seeing, and doing. We catechize them, and we teach them to worship. This is our duty as parents, and this is our responsibility as a church. Children may squirm and make noise. but they are children of the covenant and all of God's promises apply to them every bit as much as they do to us. Our children belong in worship with us. And again, I know I'm preaching to the choir here because you are so supportive of the children of this congregation, thank you. Two more, I'm getting late. Come. Come to sing. Make a joyful noise is what the Psalter tells us to do. Come and sing. I know we don't all have glorious voices, but come and sing His praise. How many Psalms call us to come and sing? Finally this, come to make application. Leave different than when we came. Conclusion to the sermon tonight. I've mentioned over a dozen ways to come, tried to be clear and specific on a few. But above all, come. Don't stay away. Don't stay away. Oh, you all know that old story of a pastor who went and called on a guy that wasn't coming to church. And they sat together in his little den next to his fireplace. And the pastor took a poker and drew one of the coals away from the fire. And as they talked, that coal got stone cold. And that pastor was just trying to say to that brother, you're getting cold because you haven't come. So what do we need to do? Come. Do I always feel like coming? No. Do I always want to come? No. But if I'll come asking God to bless me and to bless us, will He not? So come and worship the Lord your God. That is an obligation of church members. Let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for this topic tonight, and we thank you for the power of this Ephesians 2 text, of how you've taken us that were far away and have now brought us nigh unto Christ, in Christ. in fellowship with you, with the joy and the blessing to come and worship you, to be captivated by your beauty and your glory. We pray, Heavenly Father, for us as a church, that no matter what cultural pressure might be upon us, we are going to worship you and enjoy worshiping you. Help us then. Be the assembly of believers that love you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we pray in Jesus' name.