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ట్రాన్స్క్రిప్ట్
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Acts chapter 2 verse 36, again this is God's holy and infallible word so give your attention to him. I should say this just to set this up, this is the day of Pentecost, Peter is preaching to a large crowd and this becomes the conclusion of really his sermon, Acts 2.36. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do? Peter said to them, repent. And each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off. As many as the Lord our God will call to himself. And with many other words, he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them saying, be saved from this perverse generation. So then those who had received his word were baptized. And that day, there were added about 3,000 souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common. And they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all as anyone might have need. Day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day, those who were being saved. This ends the reading of God's holy and infallible word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Amen. So our question today and our consideration today is this. Why church membership? And let me begin by just having you reflect for just a moment on how many membership cards you currently carry in your purse or in your wallet. Just think about it for a moment. What are you members of? Hopefully not Blockbuster. Well, most institutions require membership in order to keep track of members, in order to remain accountable to their obligations to their membership. in order to hold members accountable to their mutual obligations, in order to provide benefits for those who have made a commitment to the institution. Today, we want to think specifically about church membership. And it's important at the outset that we understand, that we consider that some will deny the necessity of church membership. while others are simply ignorant that there is a biblical warrant and duty for joining the church in membership. And so it's important for us to take time to consider this, especially since we're going to be seeing people enter into church membership today. When we speak of church membership, let me begin by saying that what we mean is a covenant made by a public promise in which a person commits themselves to a local congregation of believers under the authority of a well-defined group of church leaders, and ought to include explicitly written down obligations." last part I'm just adding, but a covenant made by a public promise in which a person commits themselves to a local congregation of believers under the authority of a well-defined group of church leaders and should include explicitly written down obligations. What do we mean by the church? when we speak about church membership. Well, the Bible speaks of the church, and the word for church simply means called. called. Sometimes this word called emphasizes those who have been called out of something. They've been called out of the world, out of sin, out of the kingdom of darkness. But other times, this idea of called is emphasizing being called into something, being called into a community, into a family, into a kingdom of Jesus Christ. being called into Jesus Christ Himself and therefore into His grace. I want to make a couple more distinctions in this introduction just to help us as we move through our sermon. Sometimes we can think about the church here in the earth and then we can also think about the church that is in heaven. When we talk about the church in heaven, we call that the church triumphant. The church triumphant. They are made up of, or I should say the church there is made up of the elect of God. They have been made perfect in holiness or they've been completely eradicated of their sin. They stand in the glorious presence of Christ. They behold Him face to face along with the angels. they are experiencing the triumph of Christ. Here on the earth, we refer to the church as the church militant, the church militant. This church in the earth is in spiritual war against the world and the flesh and the devil, and yet we also stand in the presence of Christ. We stand in the gracious presence of Christ waiting for his return. Now in the Church Militant, that is in the earth, the Church of Jesus Christ contains all those throughout the whole world who profess faith in Christ and His Gospel together with their children. The Church contains all who profess faith in Christ together with their children. Augustine, that famous theologian, said that the church on earth is a mixed body. That is, it's mixed with those who are truly saved and those who are not saved. Jesus himself taught that in his kingdom, that is, in the church, there would be weeds growing up among the true wheat. There would be tares among the wheat. And the wheat are the elect of God. They are the true people of God. They are the ones who truly believe, who have been brought to newness of life, who have died to sin in Christ and been raised to newness of life by the Holy Spirit. We call these the elect. And the elect are visible to God, but their election, your election, is invisible to humans. We don't have people walking around with E's on their heads to know who is elect or who's not. It's not like people walk around with halos or the elect glow a little bit more than the rest. There's nothing discernible. All we have to go by are fruits. Fruits. When the elect, though, live and love according to Christ's command and example, then the invisible church is made visible. The kingdom of God is manifested in this world. The church on earth, if I could say it a different way, is to signal to the world the reign of the gracious King, the Lord Jesus Christ. If I say it one more way, I'd say it this way, the church militant is to be a dim reflection of the church triumphant, gloriously united to Christ. So that's important. We're not saying there's two different churches, but rather two aspects of the one church. Finally, the church in the earth is spread throughout all of the earth. And the church has some natural separations within geographical boundaries. So you can think about the church in Russia, the church in the United States, the church in different countries. But also the church is fragmented, fragmented by denominationalism. which is not according to Christ's command, nor example, but is a result of our sin. And yet, because the invisible church is universally united to Christ, so too the visible church is universal. united throughout the world by a common profession of faith in Christ and by a common baptism into the name of the triune God. We call this Catholicity. That means that the church is universally united. Today we wanna, as we witness these two households publicly entering into church membership, it's a good opportunity to teach on this, and so we have four points to help move us through our text. First, we want to consider the New Testament example informs church membership. Secondly, the New Testament analogies imply church membership. Thirdly, the New Testament eldership insists on church membership. And fourthly, the New Testament partnership or fellowship is increased by church membership. Example, analogies, eldership, partnership, and I'll repeat those as we move along. But with that, let us go to our first point. The New Testament example informs church membership. There are a number of examples that we would see in the New Testament, in the pages of the New Testament. We would see, for example, Jesus' own care for the local church. In Revelation chapter 2 and 3, we see seven particular churches that Jesus addresses. And He is addressing them because, as it says in Revelation 1.13, Jesus walks in the midst of these congregations. He's walking in the midst of a candle stand, and the candle stand has seven stands coming up out of it. It's like a menorah. And the point is, Jesus walks in the midst of His people. They're lit. They show forth glory. They reveal His truth. Why? Because He's there in the midst of them. And so, Jesus not only stands in the midst of His people, but He has something specific to say to each local congregation. A commendation, or a rebuke, an encouragement, or an admonition. He speaks through His Word to His people. Jesus has something to say to this congregation, to Sycamore, as He does to other congregations that may be represented here today. We not only have Jesus' own example, we have the apostolic examples of the development of local churches. In Acts 2, which is what we just read, what do we see? We saw that 3,000 were baptized and added to the church. Is the text saying that they were added to the invisible church or they were added visibly to the church? It's saying that they were added visibly to the church by profession and by baptism. And they continued steadfastly. or devotedly in Jerusalem in the life and ministry of this Gospel community. As you continue to read through Acts, we see in chapter 8 that Samaria has professors. They have disciples of Christ. We see Africa represented in the Ethiopian eunuch. In Acts chapter 10, we see Caesarea. There's a God-fearer, Cornelius, who is up there in the coastal northern Israel area. We see in Acts chapter 11 to 14, the gospel goes out first into Antioch and then into Asia Minor. We see in Acts chapter 16, Paul makes it all the way over to Macedonia and Philippi, which is just north of Greece. I wish I had a map here just to show you all of the spreading of the gospel. And finally, we get to Rome. By the end of the chapter, we're all the way in Rome. We're in the capital of the empire. And with that, we shouldn't be surprised because Jesus promised in the very beginning of Acts 1, verse 8, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest parts of the earth." We could say it's not really the apostolic example as much as it is the Holy Spirit's work to bring all of the church together in local congregations to gather and perfect saints within the context of the local church. We see examples further when we consider these letters that Paul is sending. Who is he sending them to? He's sending them to local churches, the audience of these letters. There's local churches in various regions. We can see that he writes to the Church of God, which is at Corinth. He writes to the churches, plural, in Galatia. It's a large region. They're to pass these letters around. We can see that he writes to the Church of the Thessalonians in God. And so, again, we need to be reading and aware that there is this idea or this context of the local church, and therefore the New Testament example does inform our local church membership. Now, before we move to the next point, I want to just make one more point here. We have to appreciate that the church can be spoken of locally, like the church in Ephesus or the church in Philippi, but it can also be spoken of universally. In both those letters that I talked about, the churches in Galatia or the letter to the Galatians, the church in 1 Thessalonians, it's interesting how Paul in both those letters refers to the churches of God in Judea. There's one particular region, Judah, it's outside of the city of Jerusalem. The church is plural, you hear that. But in Acts chapter 9, it speaks of the church throughout all Judea, the church singular throughout all Judea. And so there's also a singular emphasis, a universal emphasis. And if you might say, well, hold on a minute, Sean. Acts chapter 9 is talking about the early stages of the church and then there are multiple churches that pop up. Well actually what it says in Acts chapter 9 verse 31 is this, it speaks of the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria. So one singular church throughout all of those regions. Sycamore is one congregation, we're a local church, but we are connected to, first of all, our denomination, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and then secondly, the church that is much more larger and universal than that. So, the examples of Jesus, his spirit, the work of the apostles, all of these instruct us that we are to intentionally organize and add to the local church. But is this adding to the local church more than merely gathering week to week? Yes. It involves professing one's faith. It involves identifying with the triune God in baptism, which is a public identification. It involves continually devoting oneself to teaching and fellowship, to prayers and sharing meals. And as we continue in this sermon, we shall see that promises and obligations are implied, but also required. for those joining this community called the church. And that brings us to our second point. Secondly, we want to consider the New Testament analogies which imply church membership. New Testament analogies imply church membership. And I have at least three of them for you. The first one is this. The church is referred to as a kingdom. God's people are compared to a city, to a nation, and when we say that, what we're talking about is this. We're thinking about what an actual city or nation is. We're talking about a body of people associated with a particular territory that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek a government peculiarly its own. That comes from dictionary.com if you're curious. God's people are compared to a city or a nation. Consider 1 Peter 2.9, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Or consider Jesus' own words in Matthew 21. Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people producing the fruit of it. The kingdom of God will be taken from you. And so, not only this, but Christians are called citizens of this kingdom of God. Citizens. And that citizenship forms true membership. Philippians 3.20, our citizenship is in heaven. Remember how we said a body of people associated with a particular territory? Well, our territory is heaven. You are citizens, our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Or as Peter says in 1 Peter 2.10, for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. the people of God. Not all people enjoy the rights and privileges of living under Christ's rule, but the members of His kingdom, the citizens of His kingdom, do enjoy the rights and the privileges of Christ's rule. And the implication is this, as we are joined to Christ by faith, we are to join ourselves by membership into the local church. I got to move a little faster here. Family is the second analogy. Family. God's people are compared to a family, to a household. Now, in our context and in our society, we see families that are broken, families that are separated, families that are unloving. Those things are realities, but the point is that the characteristics that we see of brokenness really expose our knowledge for and our desire for the ideal family that we were made for. Family is an institution of God, not man. And so when we talk about family, what we're talking about essentially and idealistically is this, a people living together, enjoying the bond of familiarity and intimacy. See? And in this way, the church is a family or is like a family. Consider Jesus' own teaching on this. There's Jesus preaching, He's in a house, He's preaching, and in Luke 8, verse 19, His mother and brothers come to Him, and they're unable to get to Him because of the crowd, and they want to tell Him, stop all of this, you're being crazy, just come home. And finally it's reported to him, hey, your mother and your brothers are standing outside wishing to see you. And what does Jesus say? Oh, well, all right, then that's the end, or let's stop here, I'm gonna go out and see them, right? No, he says, my mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God and obey it. Isn't that interesting? This is my family. This is my family, is what Jesus is saying. Think about the terms that God is according to his own character and that he's revealed to us. God is our father. Christ is our elder or older brother. Christians are brothers and sisters with one another. The church is a family of God. And family is not only according to nature. But membership in a family is a legal matter. It is a legal matter. Think about what forms a family. It is a marriage covenant. A marriage covenant forms a family. It's what begins a family with a public record and a marriage certificate and witnesses. It's a legal matter. And this membership provides exclusive duties and rights and privileges. And then again, Christ speaks about this when he speaks about the church as his bride. We are the bride of Christ. We are betrothed in covenant to Christ. It's a legal matter. Let's go a step further. This marriage covenant is the context into which children are supposed to be born. And when that doesn't happen in our context, when children are not born in the context of a marriage, there are legal ramifications. What's the child's surname? Who gets custody? How does visitation work? Who's supposed to provide financial support? You see, there are legal matters to the family and its children. What does the Bible say? We are adopted children of God, making us His true children, belonging to His family. So there's an obvious breakdown in the analogy to earthly families, but there is a sense in which really our families are the analogy, and the family of God is the real, because it will last forever. And the implication is this, those in the household of faith are to join themselves by membership into the local church family. Well, thirdly, we have the body. The intimacy of a family is only deepened by the analogy of a body. And probably the most famous passage that we might think of is 1 Corinthians 12, and you would be right to think of that passage. But we really could turn to Romans chapter 12, or the eight passages in Ephesians, or the two passages in Colossians, or the one passage in Hebrews, to look at this theme of the body of Christ. I won't read it all for us. The essence is this, for even as the body is one, and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it. See, if you belong to Christ, then you belong to his body, the church. Children, I want you to imagine for a moment you're walking down the street and you see something laying right there on the curb. And you look and it's, oh, it's disgusting. It's like it's a hand. Or it's a foot. Isn't that disgusting? It's unnatural. You say, who does that hand belong to? Who does that foot belong to? It's just as unnatural, you see, to see one who trusts in Christ by faith and yet who's separated, who's disconnected from the local church. It's just as unnatural. Those who think that church membership is something that we actually are not obligated to be involved in are actually what I would call church dualists. You know what dualism is? Dualism is this philosophical view. It says basically this, anything that is unseen and spiritual is good and anything physical and outward is bad. Anything to do with physical is bad, but everything spiritual is good. And essentially what they're saying is this, those who refuse to unite to the local visible church are saying the spiritual is good and the physical is bad. They're dualists. Let me just say one more thing about that. The invisible, visible church distinction I said before is not describing two distinct churches, but rather aspects of the same church. The true Christian, the one united to Christ by faith, demonstrates this relationship with Christ through the visible expression of Christ's body. So the implication is this, those united by faith to Christ, the head, are to join themselves by membership into the local body of believers. Now these analogies, they naturally differentiate between those who are in the church and those who are in the world or not in the church, but in this next point, we see that membership is necessary. It's necessary if we are to carry out God's commands in the church. And so our next point is this, the New Testament eldership insists on church membership. It insists on church membership. It would be impossible to carry out the mutual duties that are given to us in the Bible without some formal agreement and promise to maintain these biblical responsibilities. Now, our church membership might look a little different from the church membership down the road, or in the next county, or in the next state. But, the point is, is that there has to be some mechanism by which we can actually explicitly and formally agree and promise to follow what God calls us to. Here's our first passage. 1 Thessalonians 5, 12 and 13. Paul says, but we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you and have charge over you in the Lord and give instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another. Now, I think, you know, the language there is obvious. Appreciate those who diligently labor, who have charge over you. The text demands that you think about who has charge over you, who labors among you. You may know people who are pastors or elders in other cities. Are they your pastors? Are they your elders? Do they have charge over you? Do they labor among you? In some sense, we might say, well, yeah, because of my personal relationship with them, and that would be fair. We're talking about a formal relationship, not just a personal one here. Consider Hebrews 13, verse 17. Hebrews 13, 17, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable to you." Again, obey, submit, they keep watch over you. We understand this language. But what I find interesting in this passage is this language, let them do this with joy. You see, members are to help the leaders shepherd with joy. Their shepherding is to be made enjoyable by the membership. They're to make oversight easier to accomplish. In the same way we might say, children, not to say that members are children, but I'm trying to make a point here. In the same way we might say to our children, let your parents parent with joy. Give them some help in this. A third passage, 1 Peter 5. And this is important because really what it does is it lays out the responsibilities of the elders to the members of the church. Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder, interesting there, Peter is identifying himself as a mutual elder among the elders, and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight. Shepherd them, oversee them, And then he provides three qualifications. Not under compulsion, but voluntarily according to the will of God. Not for sordid gain, but with eagerness. Nor yet as lording it over these allotted to your charge. Isn't that interesting? Allotted to your charge. That's membership. But proving to be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And it's interesting that he calls out the younger men specifically. Why? Because if there's going to be any antagonism, it's most likely going to be the younger men. They need to consider their own behavior towards these office bearers. Now, I want to say a lot more about this, but again, there's probably too much to be said here. Let me say this, to promote this system of church government, the participation of the members to elect their elders is required. So first of all, we're saying this, if you're going to submit to someone, if you're going to obey someone, if someone's going to have charge over you, if you're going to be allotted to someone's charge, there has got to be explicit, formal agreement, promises, like we need to have this all spelled out. But even in the selection of who are going to be your leaders, which God incorporates the membership as part of making that decision, what we're saying is, is that officer elections require membership roles. Think about this, Acts 6, 3. Brethren, this is the apostles say to the church there in Jerusalem, Brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. And some have said these are the first evangelists, others have said these are the first deacons. The point is that they hold an office, they're ordained to this office, and what's important is the people, the membership, they are the ones voting for them. It's not like anybody, you know, hey, we're going to have a deacon election and people just come up off the street and they start voting for the people they want. You know, get all your co-workers to come in. I need more votes. You know, it doesn't work like that. No, you need a membership role. People who've actually committed themselves to the church, they're the ones who have a right and a privilege to vote for their leaders. Further, within this system of church government, the members willingly subject themselves to accountability and judgment. I could say it this way, church oversight requires church membership. The oversight spoken of in those passages previously imply the elder's involvement in your life, and especially when you have unrepentant sin arising in your life. And I have to say, this is true of all members, including office bearers. Office bearers need accountability from other office bearers and accountability from the members of the church. But the point is, is that we need affirmation and recognition and we need discipleship and discipline. And so this is the system that God has put together I want to talk about the Lord's Supper. I want to talk about a number of things. Let's move to the fourth point. The mutual duties between elders and the congregation insist upon explicit membership in a local church. But more than the duties that we've just emphasized, there's partnership, that is there's fellowship within the church that is actually cultivated and reinforced by church membership. And so the New Testament partnership is increased by church membership. And this is our last point. The church is united to the Lord Jesus Christ through faith by the power of the Holy Spirit. The church is united to Christ. They have partnership with Him. They have fellowship with Him. And they have fellowship with Him in His virtues, that is, He shares His virtues with them, and He shares also His sufferings for righteousness' sake with them. And that vertical fellowship is foundational for the horizontal fellowship and communion that we have as Christians with one another. If we are united to Christ, the head, then we are united to the whole body. Jesus unites us and holds us together in him. I could say it this way, if we are united to Christ in love, then we are united to one another in love as well. Paul says that in Ephesians 4, 15 and 16. And so, our union with Christ, our communion, our fellowship with Christ, necessarily flows out into a fellowship with one another. Within the church then, within the local church, we are not only united to one another, We have communion in each other's gifts and graces. It's very fascinating the way the Bible speaks about this. You know, we live in a day and age where people are wanting to know, what's my spiritual gift? You know, and they take these little tests and everything, and I'm not saying that that's bad or wrong in and of itself, but what's the purpose? What's the purpose? Are you trying to hold up something? I took the test. Look, this is my spiritual gift. This is my spiritual gift, everybody. Look, this is my spiritual gift. When the Bible speaks about the gifts and the graces that God gives to us, it speaks about these things as being property of the whole church. Your gifts and graces are the property of the whole church. They're not yours. And they're to be used for the whole church. And we call that the doctrine of the communion of the saints. Your gifts and virtues are given to you in order to serve and to benefit the corporate body, not yourself. And think about, and you know, the greatest example of this is that God gives His Spirit. He gives His Spirit, personally given, why? For the common good of the church. The Spirit is a down payment of His blessings and benefits to you. The Spirit was given to the corporate body for the corporate body's well-being. You know, there are these one-to-another obligations, you know, love one another, bear the burdens of one another, etc., etc. There are 58, it depends on who you read, you know, some have more, some have less, 58 obligations one-to-another. And these are to be carried out by the gifts and graces that were given to you for the Church. Further, within the Church, We have diverse kinds of accountability to those with various temperaments and character. In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul says this, we urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. You see, there's different ways that we're even to interact with one another, but we're to consider and care for different temperaments and different characteristics that we have within us by our various gifts. And let us not, in this context then, forget our children. Please do not forget the children. who are members of the visible church. I should say children of believers. Children of believers are members of the visible church. We could spend all time with this and God promises to be a God to you and to your children. But just, let me give you one consideration. We said earlier that Paul's writing these letters to the churches, right? Well, one letter he writes is to the church in Ephesus. The church in Ephesus. And there, Paul addresses husbands and wives who are church members. He addresses masters and slaves who are church members. And he not only addresses the parents who are church members, but he addresses their children as well. Ephesians 6.1, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, for this is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you. You see, Paul is addressing you. Our children are members of the church. Further within the church, both physical and spiritual needs are to be met. Just one passage, 1 John 3, 16. We know, loved by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. And all of these mutual benefits and responsibilities can be summarized in this way. The local church is, first of all, vitally important because we mutually need each other. We need each other. There is an interdependence among the believers of this church. And secondly, the local church is vitally important because we have mutual duties owed to one another. There is partnership among all church members. Explicit church membership not only recognizes these mutual duties and benefits, intentionally making promises not only recognizes these duties and benefits, but to make such promises cultivates and reinforces those mutual duties and benefits. If I said it a different way, a partnership is increased by church membership. So we've looked at the New Testament examples, we looked at the New Testament analogies, we looked at the New Testament eldership, we looked at the New Testament partnership. If you're looking for just a chapter and verse, I don't got one for you. We've seen so much more than that. The witness here is that not only are we informed about our church membership, but we see implications of it, we see an insistence upon it, and we see how it actually promotes the increase of our fellowship and partnership together. May the Lord Jesus Christ provide His blessing to each individual in this church as well as through each individual, for his own glory, for the good of his church, and as a witness into this world. Amen.
Why Church Membership
సిరీస్ Church membership
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