On Membership (Part One)
Text: Romans 12:4-5, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
WELCOME AND GREETINGS
Well Church, today, and next Sunday we’re going to be talking about membership, and why membership matters.
So first of all, let me just put this out there. Fairview Fellowship Church is a new church. You are no longer Methodists. Just like Martin Luther did for the Catholic Church, during the Protestant Reformation, you have prayed and prayed for that denomination. You have petitioned, and argued against their drift towards liberalism, heresy, and their approval and acceptance of immorality. They have ignored the pleas of their people, and have continued their path, and are rushing headlong toward apostasy. You have been obedient to the Biblical teaching to wipe the dust from your feet. And you have followed the example of our Lord Himself. We see that example in Luke 19:41-42 where it says when Jesus drew near to the city of Jerusalem He wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”
So you are no longer Methodists. I am no longer a Southern Baptist. Like Martin Luther did for the Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation, I have prayed and prayed for that denomination. I have petitioned, and argued, and written papers, and debated others against their shift towards liberalism, and heresy, and their approval and acceptance of Marxist philosophies and ideas.
And so like I said, we are a NEW CHURCH. We are a gathering of called out, Bible believing Christians, who have chosen to gather in this place – AS THE CHURCH, and to serve God, love God, and live for God together.
And for all intents and purposes, this is not only the History of Christianity, but the Christian heritage. Those first believers, the Apostles, the Disciples, those first believers. They were called out of Judaism as they were saved by faith in Jesus Christ. They were no longer Jews, but became Christians. And then as Paul, and Peter, and James, and John, and Matthew, and Andrew, and all the others went out, and began sharing the Gospel, and more and more people were added to the Church, they too were called out from what they previously were, into the ONE TRUE FAITH. Some were Hellenistic Pagans. Some were Jewish, some were following the false gods of Egypt, or Ethiopia, or they Mystery Religions of Asia Minor. But they were called to faith in Christ, and in Christ alone.
And then down through the course of history, you had men like Martin Luther, and John Calvin, and John Knox, and Zwingli, and Hus, and Theodore Beza, and the other Protestant Reformers, who saw the error of the Catholic Church, and were called out, to the ONE TRUE FAITH. Not faith in the institution, or in the sacraments, but faith in Jesus Christ alone. They said that the Scriptures alone are our one true guide for all matters of faith and practice! They said that they were saved by God’s grace alone. Through faith alone. In Christ alone, and that it was all to the glory of God alone. THE 5 SOLAS, Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Sola Christus, Sola Deo Gloria!
And then down further through history, the Puritans and Pilgrims said, “The Church of England has become corrupt, and is no longer following Scripture, or the God of Scripture.” And even Wesley came out of the Anglican tradition… and later on Spurgeon warned against, and preached against, and did battle against what became known as the Downgrade Controversy, which was an attack on the reliability and sufficiency of Scripture.
My point is – we have a long history of men and women, who loved God, and who stood on the Word of God, and would not be moved by the philosophies of the age in which they lived in. But instead said, “Here I stand! I can do no other! So help me God!”
This is why we are here. We as a Body of Believers have been brought to this place for such a time as this to say, “We will not bow our knee to the god of this age. We will only bow to our Lord and King Jesus Christ! We will not be led astray by worldly wisdom and the vain philosophies of man.”
ON CHRIST THE SOLID ROCK WE STAND! Because we know ALL OTHER GROUND is sinking sand.
And that brings us to where we are, and to this issue of membership.
So where does this idea of membership come from? Well… it comes from the Bible. Turn with me to Romans 12:4-5, “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
Ok… so lets turn a few pages over to 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 (READ).
So membership is a Biblical idea. God takes an unbeliever, saves that unbeliever by His grace, through faith, which comes through the hearing of the Gospel, and God takes that person, converts them, saves them, and adds them to the Body of Christ, making them a member of that Body.
That’s how a person become a member of the Church – Capital “C” Church.
The local Church, is just the localized gathering of those believers. We are believers and members of the Body of Christ, and we have chosen to meet and gather in this place.
Now when we look through history, the first Christians were brought out of Judaism, and becoming a Christian for them was a matter of belief – believing that Jesus was the promised Messiah – the Savior that God had promised to send. The Jewish people already had a moral code, they were already monotheists – meaning they believed in one God – it was just a matter of getting them to understand that God the Son became incarnate and died for their sins, and was raised from the dead because of their justification. Those first converts already gathered together on the Sabbath Day… so there wasn’t a whole lot of “training” that needed to be done… just theological instruction.
The second wave – so to speak was the Gentiles… Those Christian missionaries to the Gentiles, like Paul, and Barnabas, and Silas faced a whole new set of problems. The first one was that the Gentiles were Polytheistic, not Monotheistic… in other words, the Gentiles believed in many gods…. They were used to the “add-a-god” theology. So they would have a god of the seas, and a god of the sun, and a god for celebrations, and a god for the harvest, and a god for war… and so they had to learn that adding Jesus wasn’t acceptable. So the Apostles and those missionaries to the Gentiles had to first of all get the Gentiles to let go of all the unbiblical things, and then take hold of and grasp all the true, Biblical teachings. It took some time. Sometimes Paul would spend years with a local gathering, getting folks to understand what it meant to be a Christian, and what it meant to be a local church.
Those Gentiles had a lot of unbiblical notions and ideas that they thought, “What’s wrong with this?” And Paul (and others), had to teach them and disciple them.
So what did the early Church do? Well they began instructing new converts on what membership in a local congregation meant. And they implemented a process of examining a person’s life, behavior, and beliefs to ensure that they were truly converted.
In other words, they did what Jesus told them to do in Matthew 28:19-20. “GO therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
So they would go and they would preach the Gospel – and people would be converted by the hearing of the Gospel. They would make a public profession of their faith by baptism, and they would be made into disciples…. The root word for disciple, is the same root word for discipline.
Now in our modern thinking we sometimes think of discipline as something bad. It’s something that happens when we mess up and we must be disciplined. But in reality, discipline means to make something straight. To make it go rightly. It is corrective, and instructive.
And we get that concept. It takes discipline to be a professional athlete. It takes discipline to master a skill. It takes discipline to be a concert violinist, or a master painter, or a black belt in martial arts.
And they implemented local church membership as a means of putting up both guard rails, and fences.
Guard rails to make sure that those within the Church were staying straight and correct, and fences to make sure that false teachers or wolves in sheeps clothing were not getting into the flock and doing irreparable damage.
Turn with me to Acts 20:28, Here is the Apostle Paul and he’s talking to the elders and leaders of the Church of Ephesus, and 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.” Now that is a message to pastors concerning the Church (Capital “C”). But in 1 Peter 5:1-3 Peter writes, “I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is AMONG YOU, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.”
So the picture that the Bible paints for us is that the Church is one giant flock and Jesus is the Good Shepherd over that flock. But that flock isn’t in just one pasture. It’s spread out all over the world, and Jesus – the Good Shepherd, has appointed under-shepherds to oversee these gatherings of the flock in localized places. And these under shepherds are expected to feed the flock, to nurture the flock, to care for it, and protect it, to lead it in the way it should go… and that’s an interesting concept… If you’ve ever seen sheep, they follow their shepherd. We have to drive cattle, but you lead sheep. And these localized flocks need those under shepherds, because if you’ve ever seen sheep, they will just eat anything that they come across, whether its good for them or not. They’ll fall into pits and holes. They’ll get attacked by wolves and other predators. Sometimes they would stolen away by thieves… And that thief might want to add that sheep to its own flock, not caring about the loss, or harm their thievery might do to the flock the sheep actually belongs to… and other times they would steal them, just to use them for their own purpose, to eat them, or sell them. And the sheep might think that the thief is a better shepherd, or that his pasture is better than the one they were in… but just by the fact that the thief was willing to steal a sheep makes him a wicked shepherd. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah all speak out against them.
The point is, these local churches, need guardrails and fences for the safety, integrity, and the well-being of the flock. And down through history, the Church has found that the best guardrails and fences are to require membership. “Regenerate and Covenantal Membership”.
Here’s what that means. Members who are born again. Members who know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and who are known by Him. That’s a regenerate church member. Someone who has been saved by the grace of God, through faith in Jesus – and whose life is being sanctified by that same grace. And members who have come together in agreement to the faith, in Gospel Partnership. That’s Covenantal Membership. That comes from Philippians 1:3-5 where Paul writes, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your PARTNERSHIP in the Gospel from the first day until now.” That word “partnership” or some versions use the word “fellowship” is the word “koinonia”, and what that means is these Philippians locked arms with Paul in his doctrine and theology, in his ministry, and in his mission. That same word is in our church name – Fairview Fellowship – Fair View Koinonia.
And so what we are saying is we are willing to lock arms with one another. We are willing to unite here, believing that our church constitution, our statement of faith, and our bylaws best represent the true and faithful teachings of Scripture, and that they are worth joining together for, striving for, living for, and even dying for. Because they come directly from the Word of our God and King, Jesus Christ our Lord and only Savior.
Now we’ll close here for today, but next Sunday, we’re going to look at our Constitution, our Statement of Faith, and our Bylaws and ask you, if you too are willing to join us in Koinonia as part of the body of Christ that gathers in this location.
LETS PRAY
CLOSING
