Introduction
Welcome everyone! I hope your week has been well. It’s good to be with you on this fine morning.
Today, we’re wrapping up a series where we are looking at the different roles within in the church.
Next week, we’re going to kick off a new series on the After Life. We all have questions about life after death-What happens when we die? Is there a heaven? Is there really a hell? Are we really good enough? What happens when we die?
We’re going to spend the next three weeks talking about that so I hope you can be here for that.
Today, we’re going to finish talking about the church and the different roles within the church. Many of us know the church is made of attendees, volunteers and leaders (elders and deacons) and each role is vital to the health and well being of the church.
The last couple of week’s we’ve been talking about the spiritual leaders and the super servants of the church-the elders and deacons and their role.
Today, we’re going to shift the focus to the body of Christ. We’re going to talk about how we can be a good and contributing member to the body of Christ.
Before we jump into this, let’s be a little honest about something, there are going to be things that we talk about that if we applied to a different season of life, we would normally be doing it. The reality is we’re still living in a Covid kind of world.
What may be normal for some isn’t always normal for others? As the old saying goes, ‘Season come and season go,’ and so maybe you seat here finding yourself in a different season. A season of frustration, a season of hurt, and a season of not understanding.
You just can’t do the things you want to or the things that you use to and its frustration. I’m here to tell you that it’s ok. It won’t always be this way and it won’t last forever. Where ever you find yourself during this season of life just be obedient to Jesus and cling to Him.
There will come a time when God may restore and bring back the things that you desire or He may give you a completely different task. Just continue to cling to Him and seek Him out in this season.
So as you are listening today there might be things you are not able to do right now, but there are other things that you might be able to go all in on.
Today, I’m going to give you six different ways you can be a good member within the body of Christ
Slide 1. Good Members Are Present
The most obvious way to express your commitment to God’s church is by being in it on a regularly bases. Understand your physical presences matters.
Slide Paul said, “Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.” Colossians 3:16 (NLT)
Now understand the early church did have access to the Old Testament, but they didn’t have the New Testament or any other kind of Christian literature-like we have today.
And so meeting together and being present with one another was a priority for the early church.
Because within those meetings people would share the Good News of Jesus Christ. They would share the stories of the miracles. They would share his parables and His deep spiritual truths. They would share the stories about His run-ins with the religious leaders and how he stood firm against them and their hypocrisy.
And most of all they would share the story about the raisin Savior who came and made away for all people to experience the grace and mercy of the Father.
And what’s interesting is that they just didn’t tell these stories with everyone sitting in a circle.
No sometimes these deep spiritual truth were also told in the form of a song. It wasn’t uncommon for the early church to use music to help teach about the Savior. They would use psalms, hymns, and other spiritual music.
And so they made meeting together a priority so that these stories and these spiritual truths could be passed on from person to person-generation to generation.
And we still see this happening today.
And when we make showing up a priority man it’s such an encouragement to the people around us. Because I really don’t think we understand how our physical presence can make an impact on someone else.
Because what’s easier for someone, is it easier for someone to worship on Sunday morning when this thing is more than half full or is it easier to worship when this place is looking like a ghost town.
What’s more encouraging for the people who are?
It’s much easier to raise my hands and worship when you are here doing it with me. It’ much easier for me to take in the word of God and discuss with you, when you are here. It’s easier for me to get to know you when you are here. And it’s easier for me to build a relationship and let you in when I am here and you are here.
Please understand your very presence matters in the house of God.
Because when people come to visit they want to see others. They want to see a body of believer that are alive and worshipping the Father. They want to see example after example of people who have been changed by this God they are seeking.
More than anything they want to experience a church that is alive. They don’t want to walk into an empty building wonder, “Is this place dying? Is this place closing?”
I have visitors ask me more times than not if this place is dying because at times this place can be a ghost town.
You’re presence matters…and so make worship a priority.
Slide 2. Good Members Keep Maturing
Keep growing in your faith…
Slide Look at what Paul said, “We have not stopped praying [Who’s praying? Paul and Timothy] for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.”
I love this! And what a great example for you and I to be doing for one another. But notice what Paul and Timothy are praying for-they’re praying for knowledge, for wisdom, and for understanding, they’re praying for maturity.
They are wanting their readers (including you and I) to have a deeper understanding of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
And I want you to notice something here, when we’re growing in faith, when we’re growing in wisdom, in knowledge and in the understanding of our faith,
When we’re going deeper look at what happens
Slide “Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord,”
Listen when you’re maturing in your faith, when you’re letting go of the old self and you’re allowing God to change your behavior, your attitude, and you’re trying to be obedient to Scripture… God is going to honor that.
And you’ll find as you are maturing you’re going to live a life that is honoring and pleasing God. And when we’re doing this look what happens.
Slide “…and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.” Colossians 1:9-10 (NLT)
And so how in the world do you know if you are maturing in your faith? Well, what kind of fruit are you producing in your life? Because the reality is that Paul said we would produce good fruit.
So if we can produce good fruit that must also mean we can produce bad fruit. So what kind of fruit are your producing?
Slide But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)
As you get to know God better and better these things are going to become more evident in your life. And listen Paul isn’t call us to life of perfection and so sometimes it take awhile for this kind of fruit to grow in our lives.
But they key to all of this is that we have a desire within us to grow. And when we are growing this kind of fruit in our lives the church is a better place. And so we want to grow.
Slide 3. Good Members Serve One Another
We covered this a few weeks ago but God has created you and me to serve one another. He’s gifted you and me with different passions and desires; He’s put a different calling on each of our lives.
Slide Look at what Peter says, “God has given each of you a gift…”
Please realize this that God has given each of us certain gifts and talents. Peter is clear on this that every single one of us has a gift.
But here’s the thing for most people they’ll either use their gifts for personal gain or I don’t have anything special to offer, I don’t have any special talents or gifts, there’s nothing unique that I am just plain Jane.
And understand that is just a plan lie that has been spoken into your life over and over again to the point that you believe it. You have gifts, you have talents, you have the ability to do things that other people can’t do.
Slide Look at what Peter say’s [each of you have a gift] “from his great variety of spiritual gifts.”
And so maybe you don’t have this over the top talent that is changing the world. Maybe you don’t have these gifts that cause people to stop and take notice. But understand you’re not called to change the world, you’re not called to perform for a room full of people.
You’re here to serve those around you. You’re here to make an impact in your little world.
And so maybe you have the gift of baking and cooking, and so you use those gifts to minister to people in need when they’ve hit a rough patch.
Maybe your body doesn’t work as well as it use to so you can’t do much but the one thing you like to do is pray, and so you start praying for the people around. You start praying for their relationships, their health, their faith journey, or anything else you can think of.
Maybe you’re not the sharpest or brightest person in the room but God has given you this amazing gift to work with your hands. You’re able to see things and fix things that would stump most people. And so you use your gift to fix one leaky sink at a time.
You see we all have something to offer and sometimes the reason why we don’t use what we have is either we don’t realize what we have [hence why meeting together can be important because people can see things in us that we can’t see…so maybe we don’t realize our gifts but other’s might] or we’re afraid. We’re crippled with fear.
And when we allow fear to hold us back that means someone is missing out.
Slide Again look what Peter said, “Use them well to serve one another.” 1 Peter 4:10 (NLT)
Someone is relying on you to serve them and when you’re not using your gifts to serve someone is missing out. So we serve…
Slide 4. Good Members Give
If you want to be an impactful member than give of your time, your talent, and your resources to the mission of the local church.
Slide Look at this powerful example from Jesus: While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people dropping their gifts in the collection box. Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two small coins.
Now let’s talk about this for a moment, Jesus was in the area of the Temple called the ‘Court of Women.’ And in this area were seven boxes in which worshippers could deposit their Temple tax and six boxes for freewill offering, like the one this woman gave.
And so this widow was not only poor but she had very few resources for making money. Remember women back then really didn’t have any rights. During this time if you were a woman, you were almost considered property.
And if you were a widow there wasn’t any government programs like today to help you make ends meet. If you didn’t have older children or family, your’re pretty much on your own.
And so for this very poor widow her small gift was a sacrifice, and what’s so powerful about this is that she gave it so willingly.
Slide Verse 3 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said, “this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.” Luke 21:1-4(NLT)
Did you notice the contrast here? Did you notice that the rich people only gave a tiny portion of what they had whereas this widow gave all that she had.
And who does Jesus admire? It wasn’t the rich people who only gave a tine tiny bit, it was the poor widow that gave so sacrificially.
You see when was the last time that you gave back so sacrificially? When was the last time you gave of your time, of your talent, and of your resources like money that it stretched you?
Like for some of you it’s nothing for you to come in and drop some money. Man, that’s easy. But what about your time? Are you really giving back by using your time to volunteering in an area that is desperately needing volunteers?
How about flipping that, maybe for you it’s nothing for you to come in here and get plugged in and use your gifts and resources to volunteer. I mean this is what you live for.
But how about when it comes to tithing. Are you giving just enough or are you willing to stretch and give sacrificial because sacrificial giving is what causes the Father to take notice.
Listen God doesn’t need our time, our talents, or our resources-he’s God he can do whatever he wants. But one of the things that giving does is that it allows us to have a dependency on the Father.
Like we’re going to give so much of ourselves and our resource, we’re going to stretch and give, that we’re going to have to rely on God to make the ends meet. That’s the kind of giving the Father is looking for.
And so we give sacrificially of our time, talent, and resources.
Slide 5. Good Members Seek Unity & Love
Slide Therefore I, [Paul] a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. [Fruit of the Sprit]
Now realize that no one is ever, ever going to be perfect on this side of heaven, we’re going to make mistakes, we’re going to disappoint, we’re going to hurt, we’re going to do a long list of a lot of thing that are going to test our relationships.
And so as Christ followers we have to learn to love and forgive other believers when they mess up. Because the reality is there going to. They’re probably going to do it more than once.
And so the question you need to answer this morning is-Who do I need to forgive?
Who is that one person that just annoys the heck out of you, who drives you complete crazy that you need to mend a relationship with?
Because here’s the thing instead of dwelling on this person’s fault’s, or this person’s short comings-why don’t you start praying for them?
If you can’t bring yourself to pray for them, why don’t you start praying for their home life, their family, maybe the people that they have to work with or interact with?
Just start praying and then maybe take it a step further and start spending a little time with them (do coffee, do lunch, make small talk) and see if you can learn a little more about them
If you want to be a good member start making allowances for others faults.
Slide Verse 3: Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace.
Unity doesn’t just happen; we have to work at it. We often allow our differences and opinions to divide us when in reality like Paul said, “Remember your to live a life worthy of you’re calling.”
We’re called Christians, we’re united with Christ through His death and Resurrection. And last time I checked there was no division between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and so there shouldn’t be division within the body of Christ.
We’re called to be united. And so instead becoming so fixated on the things that divide us and drive a wedge between us- let’s start becoming more focused on the things that unite us.
Slide For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all, in all, and living through all. Ephesians 4:1-6 (NLT)
We have to do a better job at appreciating one another and loving one another. We have to learn to embrace how different we are and how our differences are such a gift from the Father because it makes the body come together and work together as the church.
We have to learn to walk in unity and in love.
Slide 6. Good Members Pray
We want to be people that are praying all together and praying privately.
Slide This is the confidence [I love this word ‘confidence’ here because it means boldness or freedom to speak]
And so as believers we have this ability to approach our Father with boldness and freedom. We don’t have to be afraid, or ashamed, we don’t have to come before Him with guilt.
Slide And we know this because Scripture tells us-Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.
Slide For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
Slide Now watch this: Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:14-16 (NIV)
You know for a lot us shame and guilt keep us from reaching out to the Father. The enemy has mastered this craft of making you and I feel so unworthy, so guilty, so unloveable that we won’t reach out to the Father and conversant.
And the enemy is crafty at this because he realizes that if he can get you to cut off communication with the father that he can slowly pull you ever which direction but the right one.
And he can do this in such a settle way.
And so that why we have to understand that we have this wonderful freedom, and that scripture tells we can approach him with confidence because of the grace and mercy we’ll find. And so don’t allow the enemy to keep you from talking with the Father.
When you don’t feel like praying, keep on praying and don’t stop.
Slide Because this is the confidence…we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 1 John 5:14 (NIV)
Understand that…he hears you. And so we want to be people of prayer.
Slide Listen there is no such thing as a good church member.
Every single one of us is going to fall and make mistakes. And it is going to hurt and it’s going to be painful but we have to remember this life isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon.
Seasons will come and season will go and people with time will change and mature differently and we want to be people that are helping them do this. We want to be a body of believers that are building one another up. Not tearing them down. We need to allow for mistakes and mishaps. We need to allow grace and mercy because that is what we are given every day.
We want to be the best members that we can be within this body. And so I’ve given you a blue print to start working with.
Let’s pray
