Well, this evening, we're going to be talking about church membership. We have the privilege this evening of receiving some new members into our fellowship. And I want to focus our time together in God's word in considering and thinking about what church membership means, what it is. And I want our our study this evening to be guided by two questions. First of all, where is church membership in the Bible? Is this even a biblical concept? And then secondly, what is the purpose of church membership? And we're going to be looking at several different passages. Feel free to turn to them as I refer to them or jot down the references and look at them later. But first question, where is church membership in the Bible? Like the doctrine of the Trinity, we don't find the matter of church membership stated explicitly in the Bible. But of course, that doesn't mean that it's not there. When we begin to see what the Bible says about the church, I think we can see pretty clearly that what we refer to as church membership is assumed and is implied by the biblical writers. One indicator is what the New Testament says about church leadership. We'll look at two indicators from the New Testament that point to church membership. And the first is what the New Testament says about church leadership. We're taught that there is to be a plurality of elders, a group of elders in each congregation who are responsible to teach and preach and lead And it's clear that these elders are responsible to do that in a particular flock. The elders know who the flock is. The flock know who the elders are. We know from Acts 14.23 that elders were appointed in every city. So there isn't a group of elders who are responsible for the church universal. There is such a thing as the church universal, which makes up all the true believers in the world. But when the New Testament talks about church leadership, it is tied to local bodies of believers. In the early church, there was a group of elders in each city, meaning there was a group of elders in each local church. There were the believers in that city that made up that church, and there were a group of elders overseeing that church. And the clear assumption is that each group of elders knew who those individuals were who made up the flock for whom they were responsible. In Acts 20, Paul sins for the Ephesian elders. And he instructs them in Acts 20, 28, he says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. The elders in Ephesus were responsible to oversee the flock in Ephesus, those believers in Ephesus. Therefore, they must have known who made up that flock. And this concept is what we're talking about when we talk about church membership. The second thing that clearly points to church membership is what the New Testament teaches about church discipline. So first we've seen from what the Bible says about church leadership, and now from what the New Testament teaches about church discipline. Matthew 18. And I invite you to turn here with me. Matthew 18. Verses 15-17. This is on page 823 in the Pew Bibles if you want to use one of the Pew Bibles. Page 823. This is a fairly well-known passage. Matthew 18. Jesus' words on how to handle these issues of sin in the church. Verses 15-17. Jesus says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. This is the biblical teaching on church discipline directly from the mouth of Jesus. And notice that the final step in the process is bringing the matter before the church, which is the local body of believers. The person who is unrepentant in this situation is a member of a particular local church. And if that person remains unrepentant, the church must exclude him or her from fellowship, which means the person would no longer be considered a member of the church. This is what church discipline is about. What the Bible tells us about church discipline helps us understand the meaning and the purpose of church membership. Being a member of a church is not being part of a club. This is not a club. It's a serious commitment to a group of believers which includes the willingness to be held accountable in one's life. Those of us who are members here of this church have made a commitment to one another to live out the Christian life together. We're in this together. And that will include speaking the truth in love to one another as we fight the fight of faith, as we journey along in this life of faith, in the Christian life. There will be instances when a person who has been received into the membership of the church is no longer living as a believer. A person who gave a credible profession of faith, they were able to explain the Gospel evidence in their life of being born again, it seemed. And because of that profession, they were received into the membership of the church. But then a time may come when an individual may stop coming to church, may head down a path of sin in one's life, may embrace some false doctrine. They may continue then in that sin and be unrepentant. And in that case, these steps of Matthew 18 need to be carried out. And in those cases where a person remains unrepentant, it is our responsibility to follow these guidelines of Jesus in lovingly pursuing this person and pleading with them to repent. And if the person remains unrepentant, then the person must be excluded from membership The intention though being all along, the intention and the hope and the prayer being that the person will repent and be restored to fellowship. Paul discusses a case of church discipline in 1 Corinthians 5. And you can turn there with me. This is on page 954 in the Pew Bibles. 1 Corinthians 5. And I'll read verses 1-5. We heard from Jesus, the very words of Jesus in Matthew 18, and now we see the Apostle Paul inspired writer here writing this letter to the church in Corinth and writing in 1 Corinthians 5, beginning in verse 1, 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 and you are arrogant Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit, and as of present, I have already pronounced a judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. This man that Paul is talking about here has his father's wife, the text says. We can assume that this man is not turning from his sin. He is pursuing this sin in an unrepentant way. And the church isn't doing anything about it. And that's why Paul chastises them here. This is why Paul rebukes them because they're not addressing this situation. The local body of believers is not holding this man accountable as they should. Now notice that the issue is not just some sin for which the person is repenting of this sin and seeking the Lord's forgiveness for sin. Paul is not instructing that the church should exclude individuals from the membership of the church for just any sin. If that was the case, we would all be excluded. The problem, it's important for us to see what the issue is and what the problem is. The problem is when a person is living in unrepentant sin. And as individuals confront this person and plead with this person and speak the truth in love to this person, they continue in unrepentant sin. That's what the issue is. And that's when the church needs to step up and confront the sin in a corporate and severe way. The way that Paul describes this action in verses 4 and 5 is shocking and frightening. What does it mean to deliver someone to Satan for the destruction of the flesh? Well, I think what Paul is talking about here is the same thing that Jesus is talking about in Matthew 18 when He says that if a person refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. What's being described in each of these passages by Jesus in Matthew 18 and by Paul here in 1 Corinthians 5 is the removal of a person from church membership. A person who was once considered part of the body must now be excluded from fellowship because he or she is living in unrepentant sin. The next thing we need to see in this passage is the purpose of all of this. We can't miss the purpose clause in Paul's statement. You see this at the end of verse 5. "...so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord." The purpose of church discipline is not punishment. The purpose is restoration. Some people think that church discipline sounds harsh and unloving. But we don't do anyone any favors by minimizing their sin or overlooking their sin. That, in reality, is what would be harsh and unloving. But when we follow the steps that Jesus set out for us in Matthew 18, we are showing that we truly love a person. that we love them so much that we're willing to do the uncomfortable thing in confronting their sin. And if need be, we'll even exclude a person from the fellowship of the church in order to impress upon them the gravity of their sin and their need to turn from that sin, repent of that sin. That is the hope and the design of church discipline. 2 Corinthians 2 describes another situation in which the opposite response is needed. Instead of discipline, in 2 Corinthians 2, Paul tells the church to forgive and comfort this individual so that he won't be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. He writes in 2 Corinthians 2.6, for such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So this person had been disciplined by the church, but now, evidently the person has repented of sin and Paul's instruction is for the church to forgive and receive this person. It's interesting that Paul refers here to the majority. He says this punishment by the majority is enough. The fact that the Corinthian church disciplined this individual with the consent of the majority must mean that they had a clearly defined membership. They knew who the individuals that constituted this church well enough to know that a majority of this church acted in disciplining this person. It certainly wasn't the majority of the church universal that Paul is talking about here. It was the majority of the believers in this local church in Corinth. In other words, the majority of the members in this church. Well, what I hope to have shown in just briefly looking at several of these passages is to show that church membership is a very clear and valid inference from what the New Testament teaches us about these two things, church leadership and church discipline. We don't see the words church membership found explicitly in the Bible, but this concept is being clearly implied in these different aspects of what we learn about the church. Second question, then, what is the purpose of church membership? I'll mention two purposes. I'm sure there are many things that we could talk about here, but let's just put this under two headings of number one, to edify the saints, and then secondly, to glorify God. So first of all, to edify the saints. As we first think about how church membership serves the purpose of edifying the saints, we can think of at least a couple of ways that this happens. One way that believers are edified through this commitment that we have to one another in the local church is in terms of protection. Protection. We saw in 1 Corinthians 5 that being removed from the church is described as being handed over to Satan. Very scary way of describing this. 1 Timothy 1, verses 19 and 20 is another place where Paul speaks of handing individuals over to Satan. In that context, the problem is not gross immorality like the problem was in 1 Corinthians 5, but in 1 Timothy 1, the problem instead is false teaching. And the discipline that is required is the same. Paul says there in 1 Timothy 1, 19 and 20, he says, "...by rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." So, to be delivered over to Satan in 1 Corinthians 5 and 1 Timothy 1 means to be removed from the church, to be disciplined by the church. This is what we call church discipline. here is that there's a certain level of protection that is involved in being part of the church. Being removed from the church is being handed over to Satan. So to be part of the church implies being protected in some way from the evil one. So church membership edifies the saints by protecting us from evil and from the evil one. By virtue of our commitment to one another and our accountability to one another, we are protected from evil. Hebrews 3, 12-14 is another passage that demonstrates how our relationships within the church will help protect us from sin and be a means of grace to us in causing us to persevere in a life of faith. Hebrews 3, 12-14. This is on page 1002 in the Pew Bibles. Hebrews 3, 12, "'Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. The fight of faith, which is what the Christian life is. The fight of faith is a battle to see the superior pleasure of knowing Christ. to see that that is a far superior pleasure to the deceitful pleasures of this world. Sin seduces us with the pleasure that it holds out for us. Sin is deceitful. This passage speaks of the deceitfulness of sin. Sin tells us that obedience to God is boring and dull and that rebelling against God, sinning, will be exciting and fun and pleasurable and comfortable. This is how sin deceives us. This is how sin lies to us. And if we don't have deep fellowship with other believers and accountability to one another as believers in a local church, if we don't have that, the deceitfulness of sin will overwhelm us. We can't make it on our own. We need one another. We need the fabric of a body of believers to hold us and keep us and spur us on in the fight of faith. Another way that the saints are edified through our commitment and involvement in the local church is that we are spurred on in the process of sanctification. So not only are we protected in various ways from evil, but we are also positively motivated and spurred on in the pursuit of godliness and holiness. Turning over a few pages to Hebrews 10 is another important passage that relates to this. Hebrews 10, 24 and 25 instructs us, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near." These verses describe some of the essential components of what church membership is about. We are to stir up one another to love and good works. We encourage one another by warning each other against sin and pointing each other to the glories of Christ. And this happens when we meet together We need to meet together for these things to happen. We need to be together. Life on life. Encouraging one another. Sharing our lives with one another. Praying for one another. Exhorting one another. We need to meet together for these things to happen. We need to be together on a regular basis. I received a phone call last week from a man in Rhode Island who was looking for a church, looking for some counsel. And somehow he found our website, didn't realize that we were in Pittsburgh, but called and I was in God's providence, was able to talk to this man and he was wrestling with various things, wrestling with sin in his life, struggling with assurance of salvation, weighed down by depression. It was encouraging that he was seeking out a church home and seeking out godly counsel and wanting believers around him in order to work through these issues in his life. He knew that he needed help. And as we talked, these are the very things I encouraged him to do. I tried to stress even more to him the importance of being part of a local body of believers. I exhorted him, find a gospel preaching church. where there are godly men serving as elders overseeing that church, and commit yourself to that church. Put yourself under the authority of that church. Be accountable to a local body of believers. And I pray that God will bless him as he searches for those things. As I think about my own life, I know that I need this in my own life. I need the accountability that a local church provides. I need the accountability of the other elders in this church, and I'm very grateful for that. I benefit greatly from sitting down with these other men and just knowing that I'm going to respond to these questions about my personal life and my personal walk with the Lord and my marriage and my family. Just knowing that I'm going to be talking about those things on a regular basis with these other men. That helps me in the fight of faith. That helps me resist temptations that I face. It spurs me on to greater holiness. I know that apart from the fellowship of a local body of believers and apart from other men who are involved in my life, I would be a goner. I need this. We all need this. We can't be Lone Ranger Christians. We will not make it. We need one another in our lives. encouraging each other, exhorting one another, praying for each other, being able to share our lives with one another. As I talk about these things, I immediately think of missionaries who are all over the world serving in very difficult places. And as I've talked with various missionaries, I'm realizing more and more how difficult it can be to be in a hard place in the world apart from the kind of fellowship that we can have together here. How difficult it can be for these missionaries who are going to those hard places in the world. This should spur us on to be better senders of missionaries. To be praying for these missionaries. To be traveling to visit them and thinking of how we can encourage them. Thinking of sermons and books we can send to them. Praying that they will have a network of fellowship wherever they are, however small their team may be of missionaries. This also causes me to think of those individuals who are in places where there are gospel preaching churches, where there are churches where this kind of fellowship is, that there are these opportunities. And yet, the many individuals withdraw themselves from these bodies of believers and feel that they can make it on their own. They decide that every church around them is so flawed in various ways that they're just going to kind of go it alone. This is a very tragic path to follow. It's a dangerous path and it makes a person very vulnerable, susceptible to temptation. There are many also who think that they can kind of attend various places shop around for churches and never commit to a particular body of believers. We are fickle creatures and we want to kind of hang out in different places as long as a certain place holds our attention and things seem to be going well in the way that we would like them to go, but then when something goes wrong or something happens that we don't particularly like, we just kind of move on to the next place. And I want to plead with you, all of you, brothers and sisters, not to live your life like that, hopping around from church to church. You damage the church by doing this, and you severely hinder your own spiritual growth. Become a member of a local church. Build deep relationships with other believers. Wherever that church may be, whether that's this church or some other church, be committed to a church. Build these relationships. Be accountable to others. The purpose of church membership. One, we've talked about how it edifies the saints, and then ultimately, we must see how church membership is to the glory of God. As the saints are edified, protected from evil, warned against sin, motivated in the pursuit of godliness, in all of this, God gets much glory. God gets glory in setting apart His redeemed people to shine brightly as lights in the world. God gets glory in redeeming people. from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, from various backgrounds, from different ethnicities, from different careers, all with different personalities, gathering together this eclectic, diverse group of individuals in a local church in the body of believers. We are a group of individuals with so many differences that there is no earthly explanation for why we would gather together and love one another and make sacrifices for one another. This ought to be something that just doesn't make sense in the eyes of the world. It only makes sense because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It only makes sense because Christ has redeemed us and made us His own. And that He is seeking those who are lost and drawing people to Himself from all kinds of different backgrounds. From every people group. Galatians 3.28 says, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. We are all one in Christ Jesus. We've been made children of God through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. This is how this has all happened. Because of our sin, we deserve God's wrath and God's punishment. But by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven and incorporated into this family of God. And thus, local churches where believers connect and covenant together, these churches are an awesome demonstration of the power of the Gospel. The transforming power of the Gospel. The local church is to be a testimony to the world of this powerful Gospel. Mark Dever says that local church membership is a good and necessary implication of God's desire to keep a clear distinction between His own chosen people and the worldly system of rebellion that surrounds them. This is why the purity of the church is so important because the purity of the church is for the glory of Christ. We are saved and drawn into the church. And God intends for the church to be pure and to be clearly separated from the world around us. As Paul says in Ephesians 5, in the section about husbands and wives, he writes about Christ's relationship to the church. And it says that Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." That's Ephesians 5, 25-27. Of course, sanctification will not happen completely in this life, in this age. But Christ sacrificed Himself for the church, for His Bride, in order to sanctify us. And the purity of the church, these individuals being set apart from the world, the purity of the church is a testimony to the sanctifying power of the Gospel. This is why we want to be very careful about how we receive members into the church. We want to be very careful about those individuals whom we receive into the membership of the church. We are not a club. As I said before, we're not a club that just anybody can kind of walk in and say, I want to be part of this club. That's not what's going on here. We are a community of the redeemed. We are to be a community of saved sinners. We are to have a regenerate church membership as best as we can discern. This is why we have membership interviews as individuals express interest in becoming a member of the church. We sit down with these individuals and talk about what God is doing in their life, how God saved them, the kind of evidence of faith, the evidence of God's saving grace in their lives. We want to hear and see the evidence that this person is truly a believer. So these are some of the things that we want to talk about so that we can be sure that those individuals that we're presenting for membership are true believers. People who say they're a Christian, but that there is real evidence that the person is trusting in Christ. We're concerned for the purity of the church because we are zealous for the glory of Christ. And therefore, we must be careful in receiving new members into the church. And we also must have the courage to remove members from the church when the situation requires it. in thinking further about how church membership serves the purpose of glorifying God, Jesus says in Matthew 5.16, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. And if that can happen in our personal lives, how much more can it also happen corporately as believers gather together and give evidence of how God has changed us and as we serve a hurting world around us, it will give glory to our Father in Heaven. As Jesus also says in John 13, 34 and 35, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, 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." This is another profound way that we demonstrate to the world what the love of Christ looks like and thus glorify Christ. Just as Christ loved us and forgave us even though we didn't deserve it at all, so too we forgive one another and love one another even though we don't deserve to be forgiven or loved. And in this loving community of sinners who have been transformed by Christ's love, we highlight the wonder of the Gospel. Well, I hope as I've shared from these various passages, I hope that you are persuaded from these Scriptures that the matter of church membership is crucially important for all of us. It is an extremely significant component of living out the Christian life. We can't make it on our own. We need one another. And by God's design, we are to gather together in a particular way with a certain structure of leadership and a clear mandate for accountability. And this is all for the edification of the saints, for us to be built up and grow in our relationship with the Lord, and ultimately unto the glory of God. Let's not take this matter of church membership lightly, but let us be passionately committed to this wonderful means of grace that God has given to us. The body of believers to be together. What we're going to do now is receive some new members into our fellowship here. And this is a great privilege for us to do this evening. And Lord willing, I pray as we've considered these things a weighty matter for us. This is not admitting new members to a club, but this is us covenanting together. These new members covenanting to be accountable to this church and for all of us as members of this church, making our commitment to these individuals. So I want to go ahead and invite Josh and Jen Moss to come up and Dan and Jen Fadley and Jessica Diva and Jonna Mammarelli. to all come and I'll have you all stand right here. And what we're going to do is I'm going to read through our church covenant and I'll word these as questions to which each of you will respond, I will, to each of these statements in the church covenant. And when we're done, what I'm going to have us do then is have all the members stand and I'll ask you if you commit to these individuals and receiving them into the fellowship of this church and you will respond. I will.