Several years ago the slogan for American Express was that “membership has it’s privileges.” I can tell you that I had an American Express card back then and I’m still trying to figure out what that privileges were. I say that in jest but when it comes to church membership some people think the same thing. They want to know what church membership is, how to be a member, why the should be a member and when this whole idea of being a member of a church started in the first place.
Let’s look at that last question first because a lot of people in our culture misunderstand the Church in the first century and so they make a mistake about the role of the church and what God wants for them in this century. How many people here know someone who says they are a Christian but they don’t need to go to church? I can just worship God in nature, or on the beach, blah, blah, blah. I had one person tell me well pastor you don’t understand the church in Acts met in people’s homes they didn’t go to church like we do today, that came years late, and we don’t need to do that because it wasn’t part of God’s original plan.
Now usually the response is to point out the verse that tells us not to forsake the gathering of believers, or to point out that in the Old Testament the people were commanded to come and worship. Those arguments and others like them are valid but I prefer to tell people who want to argue from Acts to read the rest of the book of Acts and perhaps pay a little closer attention. See we’ve been going through Acts and when we get back to in We’re going to meet a woman named Lydia in a town called Philippi. Here’s what’s interesting about her story for our context, Acts 16:13, “On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.”
Did you see it? Did you see what was unexpected? If not that’s ok because we wouldn’t see it in our culture. But let’s start with where Paul usually went, he usually went to the synagogue on Sunday. But he doesn’t here, in Philippi he went to the river, why. Simply this, there wasn’t a synagogue in Philippi, they didn’t have enough people to form one, so they went to the river. Why did they go to the river, because they wanted to go tubing? No, because when a city did get enough people to build a synagogue in the gentile cities the usually built them just outside the city gates next to a river, or whatever the water supply was for the town. They used that as a marker. So that’s where Paul and Silas went. There weren’t enough men to form a synagogue but that didn’t stop them they talked to the women who were there and Lydia, who was their leader, was converted. Fast forward a few years, Paul is in prison, he writes one of the most encouraging letters in the Bible to a church that was an encouragement to him. He starts it with these words, Philippians 1:1, “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons.” He addressed it to the leaders of the church, you know what it takes to have the leaders of a church? A church, the local church has always been God’s plan, even in the book of Acts.
But what about all of the other questions about church membership? What about being a member here at Madison. Over the next few weeks we’re going to be looking at church membership. Not just why you should be a member of a church, but what membership means. Recently our church approved a vision statement. Part of what a vision statement is used for is to drive your decision making process but it is more then that. It is a statement not about hopefully who you are and who, as a group and as individuals, you are trying to be. Our vision statement is “Building Relationships so that people can know God, Building People to grow to be like God, Building the Body to go serve God.” These three statements say something about us as a group and what we want to do, but it also says what we want to help happen in your life, and in the life of everyone that we come in contact with. We want you to know God, we want you to grow, and we want you to go serve God, three key words that we want for everyone, know, grow, go. That is what we want for you and we’re going to spend today and the next two weeks talking about what each of those three things look like.
For today let’s start with a two part definition of what a church is: First a church is a group of people who have committed to worship and serve God together. Why do you join a church? To show that you are committed to worship and serve with the people in the church. By the way, note that word committed, you’re supposed to be here whether it rains, or not, whether you want to watch the game or not, even if someone has hurt your feelings. You don’t run away because you’ve made a commitment. We all do things wrong at times, as member we commit to work through them. Maybe you think that’s a big commitment, but it’s Christ’s plan for us, and He gave His life for it, what commitment is bigger than that?
Second part, they have shared beliefs. There are many of these but to stick with basics for today we’re going to look at just 4 key areas. First about salvation. Romans 10:9 says, “That if you confess with you mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead you will be saved.” That is followed by verse 13, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” In short we believe that Jesus is the source of our salvation, no one, and nothing else. We also believe that what that takes is calling on Jesus as Lord. Capital “L” that means that it makes a difference in you life. This is not just about praying a prayer it is about following Him, doing what He says to do, and not doing what He said not to do. But we also believe this that if you make that commitment you will be saved. Verse 13 said, everyone, it’s not for a few, it’s not just for the good, if you call on Him, He will save you. But you have to understand that when you do He will change your life.
We also have shared beliefs about the role of faith. Faith is the source of our salvation, that is referenced in Romans 10:9, but we’re talking about faith alone. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast.” Salvation is a gift from God, given because of what Christ did, not because of what we do. It is a gift it comes by grace through faith. Why, because the penalty for sin according to Romans is death. You can’t pay that, I can’t pay that, but Jesus Christ did pay that. Then Paul makes this important note at the end God did it that way so there would be no boasting. Let’s face it if our salvation was even a little bit up to us we would compare notes, who got there the fast, who did what with the most style. I mean we live in a culture where guys can’t throw a ball through a hoop without talking about it can you imagine if salvation was at stake? Salvation is through faith in what Christ did do and will do.
The third is authority. How do we know who God is and what He says? What do we use to determine our theology and what we believe? Madison is a Baptist church, it is a product of the reformation answer to that question is one of the rallying cries of the reformation, “Sola Scripturea” it means exactly what you would guess, scripture alone. There is the Bible and nothing else. Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” The Bible is the word of God, divinely carried through the ages, it is confirmed, by archeology, the stones really do cry out and they say that this is the word of God and it is true. It is confirmed by the sheer volume and accuracy of ancient texts passed down to us, and it is confirmed by the other historians of it’s time. The Bible is the word of God and it stands forever. If you doubt it you can talk to me later but know this, I am not only a person who has spent his life looking for answers about this book, I am a man who asked questions about it to confirm it for myself. The Bible is the word of God and it is the basis of our beliefs, the Bible alone.
The final thing is purpose. What are we hear for? There are a number of things but the most important is what Jesus said in Luke 19:10, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” That is still our purpose, people are cut off from God, they do not have the salvation that He gives as a gift and our mission is to look for the people around us that the Holy Spirit would use us to help them find him. How do we do that? It’s through relationships.
See we know that we are supposed to have relationships with each other. We in the church of committed to worship and serve God together. But do we realize that there is supposed to be a purpose to some of our other relationships as well. We should be on a mission to introduce some of the people we know who don’t know Christ, to Him. If you have friends who aren’t Christians the only purpose of your friendship is to have fun, comfort each other or what ever something is wrong. You should have some relationships where your purpose is to introduce them to God. Because that is what Jesus did, Jesus life was a model of relationships with a purpose. If you don’t believe me look up just a little bit in Luke 19. That is the story of Zacchaeus. Look at what Jesus said when He first met him. Luke 19:5, “When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.’” Notice it’s not “repent and be baptized” it’s Zacchaeus we need to talk, I’m coming to your house today, let’s do lunch. When everyone else said, “Why would you associate with him?” Jesus said, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
We need to have relationships with a purpose because that’s what Jesus did. It’s also how churches grow. If everyone here brought one person to church next year and then everyone did it again do you realize that we’d have to add capacity to the building or services to the schedule? If you think that sounds difficult do you realize that in a poll done just a few years ago 87% of people in America said that they would go to church is someone invited them? Now the pollsters got a little more specific then that and their interpretation of those numbers was that if someone was asked consistently. It’s called Christian stalking where you take advantage of opportunities to invite your friends to church you and to be consistent but not annoying. If they consider taking out a restraining order it was too much.
But we need to not only be inviting people to church we need to be prepared to share the Gospel with them. For many Christians the thought of sharing our faith is a little frightening. Partially because we don’t trust the Holy Spirit enough. We’re afraid we’ll say the wrong thing or not say the right thing, but if we’re making ourselves available the Spirit will give us the right words to say. If you start have that moment afterwards where you think of all the stuff you should have said, or you finally remember that verse you forgot and you start to feel like a failure remember this, if the Spirit had wanted you to say or remember something He would have told you.
Another reason that we are afraid though is because we are afraid we will not know what to say. If that is you we’re going to try and help you. The rest of the sermon is going to be inter active. We’re going to go over the outline I gave you in you notes. Understand this is an outline, it’s to help you think of things to say and if it’s a tool that you want to use, you’ll want to personalize it. Even if you have known and shared God before and feel very comfortable doing so, I’d still like you to learn this outline because it can come in handy, I know because of used it on people personally.
The first time through I want you to see it as a theology. The Gospel is a theology. When someone asks you, what it is to be a Christian you tell them that you can explain it like this.
G od created us to be with Him
Genesis 1
O ur sins separate us from God
Genesis 3
S ins cannot be removed by good deeds
Genesis 4 – Malachi 4
P aying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again
Matthew - Mark
E veryone who trusts in him alone has eternal life
John
L ife with Jesus starts now and lasts forever
Acts - Revelation
The Gospel is: Theology
A history
Personal
***The "GOSPEL" outline was taken from the Dare 2 Share conferences.
