Our Divinely Ordained Commitments to Meaningful Church Membership

Well if you would please take your Bible. Just have your Bible marked in those portions of Scripture that I mentioned earlier. We'll be in Acts 18 first, then we'll be in first or excuse me, 2 Corinthians next, and then we'll go back. You'll notice they're not in order. We'll be in Romans 16 as well. I'll let you know when we need to turn there. Now the past two weeks we have had two messages which represent who we are and who we strive to be as a church and as a people. Two Sundays ago we studied what Jesus said about His church in Matthew 16, 17 to 18, and what I have called a mighty expectation for His church.

We were reminded that Christ is the permanent foundation of our church. He is the sole owner and faithful builder of His church. Therefore He will build our church. And no power or person, not even the powers of Satan's sin, death and hell can prevail against His church, our church. So we should have a mighty expectation for our church. And we should arrange our lives around the church, doing the work of the church, God's way, according to God's Word for God's glory. Last Lord's Day we studied Revelation 3, 7 to 13. Of course we didn't study all of those verses.

And what our Lord said in His letter to the church at Philadelphia, I titled that message the Faithful Church. We saw that Christ is the Holy and True Lord over His church and that He commanded the church at Philadelphia for their faithfulness. Though they were weak, they kept His word and they did not deny His name. They remained true to Christ through all of their difficult trials and tribulations. And we saw how Christ set before them an open door of ministry that no power, no person could shut. And He called them to hold fast and to continue to be faithful, therefore walking through that door, that open door of ministry.

And for us, the call from our Lord is that we continue to be faithful, keeping His word and not denying Christ our Lord. And our Lord is calling us to remain faithful and true and to go through the open door of ministry that our Lord has set before us. Therefore not losing our crown, not losing our reward. Now, Grace Life, listen to your pastor here. This should be our ethos. This should be our ethos. Ethos meaning that which is our character, our nature, our guiding beliefs. Ethos meaning that which is our guiding principles and beliefs as a people and as a church. Meditate on that word ethos.

For some of you, you thought, "I don't even know what that word means, pastor." Look it up. Now, this morning I want to make a shift to a more practical and topical message. And this is needed, especially in this particular time in the life of our church. I want us to revisit our understanding of church membership by looking at what we call around here meaningful church membership. This is familiar language to us. It's in all of our membership materials. It gets used a lot around our church. But this is more than language that is a part of our membership information. This is more than just church vocabulary here.

What I will share this morning should be a part of our ethos here in the life of our church. Remember, ethos means that which is our character, our nature, our guiding beliefs. This speaks to that which is our guiding principles and beliefs as a people in our church. So this is all about meaningful church membership, our guiding beliefs and principles that pertain to membership. And this is all about certain commitments. Yes, commitments that we make which are a part of meaningful church membership. And these things should literally, literally be the very fabric of our nature, our character, our families. It is for me.

This is a part of my character, my nature. This is a part of who I've been since God saved me. And this is a part of my wife's nature in character as well. It's been a part of our family all along. Now I want to start off by revisiting what I call the existence of the local church as seen in the New Testament scriptures. We can say it like this. This is all about the reality of the tangible local church as seen in the scriptures, the New Testament that is. Two Sundays ago we saw that the first use of the word church is found in Matthew 1618. Jesus told his disciples that he would build his church.

Now in my opinion, I do not believe those disciples had the faintest idea about what Jesus was talking about. Jesus was speaking of future events for them that those disciples could never have understood. But the course of that work and the work of that church, Jesus would build his church that would take place through them and in their future. So after Christ's work of redemption was complete and after he ascended into heaven and he was seated at the right hand of the Father, then in the fullness of time, meaning at the right time, God's time, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 and the church was born.

From that point on in Acts 2, we see the reality, this tangible local church starting there in Jerusalem. And Acts 2 says that the church in Jerusalem was devoted to the apostles teaching, to meeting together, to the fellowship, to prayer. So many things Acts 2.42 tells us that. But as we have learned on Wednesday nights in our study through the book of Acts, great difficulties came to the church in Jerusalem. The first were internal difficulties. They had a nice and Sapphira brought pride and hypocritical giving into the church. God literally killed them to keep all of those sins out of the church.

Then there were these external difficulties from persecution brought on by the Jews. And we've learned on Wednesday nights that that came in waves. And in Acts 8, verse 1, this term, the church at Jerusalem is used. Let that sink in. This term, the church at Jerusalem. So we see the reality, the existence of a local church there in the city of Jerusalem. Now we can't do this, but if we could travel back in time to that day, we could put our eyes on that local church there in Jerusalem. We could put our eyes on that body of believers. We could meet with them. We could worship with them. We could eat with them.

We could even be a part of their fellowship as believers. But let's take a step back from the book of Acts and think about things, big picture, bigger picture. From the book of Acts all the way to the end of the book of Revelation, it's all about the birth of the church, the spread of the churches all through cities all over the known world starting in Jerusalem, and the development and the maturity of the church and churches. And after the book of Acts, most of the New Testament was written to local churches for encouragement, teaching, correction, and so much more.

And we see where the apostles and other leaders and many different believers traveled in between many local churches for the purpose of encouragement, teaching, and maturity, and partnering in ministry. We also see how these individuals in these churches even gave monies to different churches, sometimes sacrificially. Before our Christmas break on Wednesday nights, we saw how the church at Antioch sent money to the church at Jerusalem to help with the needs and Judea that came about because of a great famine.

Barnabas and Saul traveled from the church at Antioch to the church at Jerusalem to hand deliver that support to the elders in Jerusalem. We see that at the end of Acts 11. Of course, this is a very brief and an incomplete big picture description of the activities we see from Acts to Revelation. But we can clearly see that all of this activity and more was all centered on the birth of the church, the spread of the church, the development of the church, and all these individual local churches all throughout the known world.

I've said this before, but simply you just can't read the New Testament from Acts to Revelation without seeing the local church. If you do, if you read from Acts to Revelation and you are not seeing the local church, you are missing and skipping out on quite a lot. In some of my research this week, I came up with a figure. It is hard to come up with an exact number, but it seems that there are at least 33 different local churches and Christian communities mentioned in the New Testament. Again, you just can't read the New Testament from Acts to Revelation without seeing the existence of the reality of the local church.

Now, I want to go a step further and briefly point to the organization of the local church. This is more important than we may know. We need to see and be reminded of the organization of those local churches. Early on we see that the church was organized by numbers. Yes, numbers. Acts 2.41 verse 47 over into chapter 15 verse 14 deal with the specific numbers of people who were being born again and added to the church. So it actually seems they kept some kind of a list or lists numbering how many people were coming to saving faith and being added to the church. We also see that the church was organized in its leadership.

As the church grew in Jerusalem, they appointed certain men to serve in physical matters so the apostles could remain devoted to spiritual matters. Of course, that's in Acts 6 verses 1-7. Many scholars believe this was the beginning of Deacon ministry in the church. Of course, organized Deacon ministry is seen fully developed and explained over in the books of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. And as we progress in the New Testament, we see more of the development and maturity of the church. We begin to see more and more organization and more and more structure. We see the development of church government and leaders in the church.

The books of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus explain specifically who is supposed to govern the church and how they are to govern the church. We also see the practice of church discipline. Church discipline is clearly seen in the local church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 2, 5-11, chapter 5 verses 1-13. In chapter 13, 1-2. We see it also in the church at Thessalonica. In 2 Thessalonians 3-6, 3 verses 14-15. That's just a few examples. There are more you can add to that list. So this is what I'm aiming at. If we examine the local churches that we see in the New Testament, notice what is clear.

We see organization, structure, form, and more organization as we continue to see the development of the church. And there's more of this than we realize if we pay attention. We even see designated church leaders such as apostles, prophets, elders, deacons, and evangelists. We see structure and authority which is clearly laid out in the pastoral epistles. I mentioned those earlier. 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Yes, structure and authority. We see organized evangelistic ministry to reach the lost. We saw this last week and we'll continue to see it this week in Acts chapter 13. And we see it more throughout the book of Acts.

We see organized ministry among and between different churches. Again, we see church discipline as well. And you may say, "Pastor Chris, what are you aiming at? What's your purpose here? What are you doing?" In the New Testament we see the existence of the local church. And we see the church organized with structure and purpose and form. And we have no right to ignore what we see in the scriptures here. We have no right to ignore what we see in the scriptures here. And we have no right to make the church what we want it to be. Even in structure and form. We have no right to make the church what we want it to be.

And it can sound super spiritual and it can even sound spiritually practical when one proposes to alter these things. I'll give you an example. In many churches today there's a big fuss about women in ministry. Can you call a woman a minister? Can you call a woman a pastor? Can they be in certain positions in the church? I was having a good discussion with one of the men of the church this past Wednesday night about this subject. But when we get into 1 Timothy, pretty good, in chapter 2 in small groups, we're going to see what Paul says about that. Specifically what God says about that. What am I trying to aim at? It's not a question.

It's about the structure and form that God lays out. And if we'll just do what the Lord says in all these matters when it comes to structure and form, then the local church will do it right. Now let me continue. Another surprising part of the local New Testament church that we need to see now is the existence of a church letter. Yes, we do see the existence of a type of church letter. And look church, I've said this to you before. This is one thing I gave up on years ago. I ran away from this because I saw so much abuse here. But God reformed my way of thinking there and He led me back to the church letter within the church years ago.

But here is where I want us to look at those three portions of Scripture. Let's look at Acts chapter 18 first. We read these verses earlier. It would do us some good to read them again. Acts 18, 24 to 28. Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus. Though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogues.

But when Priscilla and Aquila, that's a husband and wife team, heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross over into Achaia, the brothers, that could read brothers and sisters, encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. And when he arrived, he greatly helped those through grace who had believed. Here we see that a letter, yes, a letter was sent along with Apollos to the disciples. Why? To validate Apollos. Essentially this letter would have called the disciples to accept Apollos into the church and into kingdom work alongside them.

This letter called on them to accept him as a true Christian brother into the fellowship of believers and into the life of the church. Many of you have William McDonald's one volume commentary. It's a good, good commentary. I would recommend it for you, especially for your devotional reading. Listen to what William McDonald says here. And I'm quoting, "The brethren at Ephesus encouraged him in his desire to go to Corinth in order to preach the Word. In fact, they wrote a letter of commendation for him.

As a result, he was a great help to the believers in Corinth and vigorously refuted the Jews there publicly, showing that Jesus is indeed the Christ of God." So we see the church letter. But let's look at one more example. 2 Corinthians 3, 1 to 3. 2 Corinthians 3, 1 to 3. Now this one's a little different. Paul says, "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts to be known and to be read by all.

And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered to us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts." Here Paul was defending himself. Yes, he was having to defend himself against the false teachers who sought to discredit him. He was saying, and I'm really putting it in my words, "Do I need a letter recommending me as valid and acceptable to you?" And this would have been the kind of a letter that would have vouched for the spiritual credibility of the person, and the person in question here was Paul.

Listen to what John MacArthur says here, and I'm quoting, "The false teachers also accused Paul of not possessing the appropriate documents to prove his legitimacy. Such letters were often used to introduce and authenticate someone to the first century churches." And MacArthur notes 1 Corinthians 16.3 and 1 Corinthians 16.10 and 11. So we see a letter. One more portion of Scripture. Let's go back. Romans 16 verses 1-2. Romans 16.1-2.

Paul says, "I commend to you our sister Phoebe." So here's a woman, "a servant of the church in Sentria, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well." Here, Paul was writing to the church in Rome, and he was vouching for a woman named Phoebe. He was clearly recommending Phoebe, and he was encouraging the believers in Rome to accept her into the church fellowship. He was saying that she could be added to the body and to the work of the church. This was clearly a letter of recommendation from Paul.

Again, listen to what William McDonald here says here about Phoebe. And I'm quoting, "The apostle here introduces Phoebe and asks that she be welcomed as a true believer in a manner worthy of fellow believers. He further asks that she be assisted in every way possible. Her commendation is that she has given herself to the ministry of helping others, including Paul himself." Now, notice what these letters of recommendation essentially said, three things. First, these letters were saying that the ones being recommended were truly Christian.

Second, these letters were saying that the ones being recommended could be accepted into the local body, which was that local fellowship. This would have meant that there was no sin worthy of discipline in their life. This would have meant that they were in good standing with the believers and leaders of the church and churches they were leaving. This would have meant they would have been an asset to the church that they were going to. Third, these recommendations were saying that the ones being recommended could be entrusted to be a part of kingdom work. You see, think of these specific examples.

Apollos, Paul, and Phoebe, all three were worthy of kingdom work and they were commended to kingdom work and they were willing to be a part of kingdom work. And look, Grace Life Church, this is the case for a biblical church letter. This is. Now, there are others we could pull out of the scripture. To me, it's no stretch, it's no abuse of the scriptures now to say that these letters of recommendation speak of and speak to what we would call a biblical church recommendation, a biblical church letter, a biblical church membership. To me, this is meaningful church membership. Think about this rhetorically with me.

Was it meaningful when Apollos and Phoebe were recommended by letter to those churches by the Apostle Paul? You better believe it. And this is what we have worked so hard to establish here in the life of Grace Life Church. Let me give you an example of how this, this before us, has been fleshed out in our church. Quite a few years ago, we had a young man in the life of our church who, when he graduated from high school, he went into the military. And after he finished his four years in the military, he settled in another city in another state.

And I was on the phone with him counseling him, just about growing into faith and assimilating into a new church, things like that, all good and healthy things. And he said, "Pastor Chris, what do I need to do when I want to join this church?" I'll say, "You have your pastor call me. And I will tell him how long I have known you, how I've seen you grow in the Lord, that you have a legitimate profession of faith. I will tell him how I see you gifted, how you've served, your spiritual gifts that I see. I will describe how I have had the privilege to be a pastor for you. And I will tell him that I give you a wholehearted recommendation.

And I will tell him to sign you up in the membership of that church and to put you to work." And he said, "Pastor Chris, would you say all that?" I said, "I sure would, because it's true." And he just sat there on the phone. You see? It's the same thing we see with these examples here. Sadly, some in the past years have come into our church and they've come into the membership of our church. They've done it right on the front end, but they've done it wrong on the back end. Look, folks, you leave the way you come. You leave the way you come. And look, I'm encouraging the church, brother, sister, don't leave wrong. Don't leave wrong.

Leave with honesty and integrity. Leave right. We don't want any of you to leave. Now, really, this brings me to one of the main points of the message this morning. A church letter should represent something. You see? A church letter should represent something. The church membership and membership documents should represent something. Let me tell you what it should mean. Meaningful church membership that represents, as best as we know how, what we see in the Scriptures. Now, years ago, I ran across a church membership definition that I love and I've grabbed a hold of, and I've kept it for years.

I don't even know where I got it, but it came from John MacArthur. Listen to what he says in his church membership definition, and I'm quoting, "To become a member of a church is to formally commit oneself to an identifiable local body of believers who have joined together for specific, divinely ordained purposes. These purposes include, one, receiving instruction from God's Word, two, serving and edifying one another through the proper use of spiritual gifts, three, participating in the ordinances, four, proclaiming the gospel to those who are lost, five, in addition, when one becomes a member of a church, he submits himself to the care and the authority of the biblically qualified elders and pastors that God has placed in that local assembly." Now, out of this definition, I want to quickly touch on six commitments in church membership.

Six commitments in church membership, and these are commitments that we should all make and live out. Let me restate that. These six commitments, we should make these commitments and strive to live out these commitments. And look, if we do, this will help produce meaningful church membership in our life, and this will be a part of our ethos. Meaningful church membership should represent, number one, a commitment to assemble together. You might say, "Pastor, that wasn't seen in the definition you gave us." Look, you can't even begin to touch that definition if you don't assemble together.

Hebrews 10, 24 to 25, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and to 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." Here we have the writer of Hebrews correcting these believers within this mostly Jewish church and congregation. It appears that many could not break away from Old Covenant Jewish life and worship, which involved worship there at the temple in Jerusalem.

Simply, they were having a hard time letting go of the Old Covenant and fully embracing the New Covenant, and this was keeping them from assembling faithfully within the church with the body. We see this commitment to faithfully assemble together all the way back in Acts 2, specifically verse 42. Those within the church in Jerusalem were faithful. They were faithful to assemble for the apostles' teaching, for fellowship meals, for prayer. They were committed to assemble together as a church.

So for us in our day, we should live out a commitment to faithfully assemble together, to be what the church should be, and to do what the church should do. And a question, are you faithful to assemble together? Are you faithful to assemble together in all the areas in the life of our church? This reminds me of something that I see sometimes.

Years ago, we had a man in the life of our church come, and he said that when he came for the first time or two, he said, "Pastor, I knew I was in trouble." He said, "I came to church and I came to small group, and I thought, 'I'm in trouble.' These men here take the Bible serious." Some come and they say, "Oh, no, I'm in trouble because these people take attending serious." We should take attending serious. We should take assembling together serious. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't stay home when we're sick. I'm not saying we shouldn't miss when we have vacation. Many of you, when you go on vacation, you get a phone call from me.

I encourage you. I say, "Go have a good time. I can't wait to see you when you get back." What am I trying to show you? You cannot fulfill these divinely ordained purposes. Notice how MacArthur puts that in there? I call these divinely ordained commitments. You cannot fulfill these divinely ordained purposes and commitments unless you're faithful to be assembled together. Meaningful church membership should represent, number two, a commitment to instruction from God's Word. Here we see the first of these divinely ordained purposes. Assembling for instruction from God's Word should be seen as a God-ordained part of worship.

We should be very committed to the instruction of God's Word. That is why the preaching of the Word of God by God-called competent men is at the very center of our Grace Life Wheel. The Grace Life Wheel illustrates the basic structure and function of our church. Every now and then I'll reference it, and I call you to keep a copy of that in your Bible. We see this in two important places in one passage. First in the life of the Ephesian church, and second in the life of Timothy, who was the pastor of the Ephesian church. Listen to Paul's commandment to Timothy as he was the pastor there in that local, tangible church.

1 Timothy 4, 13 to 14 says, "Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have which was given to you by prophecy when the counsel of elders laid their hands on you." Here we see that Timothy was to be faithful to read the Scriptures and to teach and explain the Scriptures. Verse 14 tells us that this was a spiritual gift that he possessed. So he must have been gifted in preaching and teaching. And this word exhortation means explain. It means to encourage. It even means to apply to one's life. So notice the two-sided commitment here.

A two-sided God-called divinely ordained commitment. First, from the one faithfully preaching and teaching and explaining and applying God's Word. That's me and any man who would stand behind this pulpit. Second, from the congregation to faithfully be under the Word. Both are to be equally faithful to the preaching and the teaching of God's Word. You are to be faithful. I am to be faithful. And I'll speak more to my faithfulness as we continue. And look, church, I call you. Let's renew our commitment to this work. Let's renew our commitment to this divinely ordained purpose.

Meaningful church membership should represent, number three, a commitment to serve through spiritual gifts. Again, these are divinely ordained purposes. I love those words. And as born-again believers, we should serve and edify each other through the use of our spiritual gifts. Now question, what are spiritual gifts? And another question, do I have spiritual gifts? If you're a born-again Christian, you do. But spiritual gifts are not physical talents, like singing. Spiritual gifts are of a spiritual nature that come from a work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. A couple of verses that will help us here.

Paul says in Ephesians 4-7, "But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift." In 1 Corinthians 12-1 he says, "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed." And verse 7 says, "To each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." But what are we seeing here in these scripture references? The word gift here speaks of an endowment from the Holy Spirit, or a gift from the Holy Spirit. Again, these are not natural talents. These are not natural abilities.

Christians and non-Christians can have the same natural abilities and talents, but these are spiritual gifts which are given to the true born-again believer to be used in the life of the local church. Notice what 1 Corinthians 12-7 says. These are for the common good. This means these gifts are meant to be used in the life of the church, in the local church, for the good of all of the brothers and the sisters and the young people in the life of the church. And in 1 Corinthians 12 we see the gifts listed out. We have the speaking gifts, such as prophecy, knowledge, wisdom, teaching, and exhortation.

Then we have the serving, non-speaking gifts, such as leadership, helps, giving, mercy, faith, and discernment. And all these gifts are given for one purpose, for the common good, for the common good of all the saints in the life of the church. So here we see the spiritual gifts are given by God to every true Christian. They are to be used within the church for the common good. They are to be used for service in the life of the church, the edification of the church. But another question. Do we take a spiritual gifts test to find out what our gifts are? I'm not against those. But this is what I would recommend.

First, study the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. Second, pray over those gifts in your Christian life. Third, look for where you feel drawn to serve in the life of the church. Fourth, go see your pastor and other leaders. And then fifth, serve. And if you go see your pastor and other elders, they'll show you where you can serve. I have shared this with you in my life. When God saved me, God radically changed my life, obviously. But boy, when I went to my pastor as a young Christian and said, "Brother Dennis, I'll serve." And when he leaned back and said, "I'll put you to work," my life radically changed.

And look, Grace Life, our membership role, those of you in the pew, our role should consist of a list of believers who are using their spiritual gifts to serve the body to edify the work of the church. And I'm so thankful. I see so many brothers and sisters who are serving. Number four, meaningful church membership should represent a commitment to participate in the ordinances. Again, we see another one of these divinely ordained purposes. As the church, we are commanded to participate in two ordinances. And although the ordinances have very specific and serious spiritual meaning, participating in these ordinances do not impart saving grace.

We know that. First, we have the ordinance of baptism. Within the Great Commission, Jesus commanded his disciples to go and to make disciples and to baptize those new converts. We see that in Matthew 28, 18, and 19. And this would be believers' baptism, which comes after conversion to Christ. And if we continue through the book of Acts, we clearly see that the apostles practiced believers' baptism. In Acts 2, at the great end gathering of souls at Pentecost, those who were converted to Christ were baptized and added to the number of the believers according to this command.

And when you read passages like Colossians 2, 12, we see believers' baptism explained. It is an outward symbol of an inward spiritual reality. It is an outward profession of what has taken place spiritually in our lives and hearts. We are dead in our sins before we come to saving faith. But we are buried with Christ when we are converted to Christ, and we are raised up out of that water grave to live a new life in Christ. And if you have any questions about baptism, pick up a copy of our statement of faith, and it will teach you thoroughly. And second, we have the ordinance of the Lord's Supper.

We see that Christ Himself instituted the Lord's Supper when He celebrated the last Passover Supper with His disciples. We see this in Luke 22. Simply, the Lord's Supper is a ceremony whereby we remember what Christ did on the cross for us. The bread is a symbol of His body that was sacrificed for us. The wine of the juice is a symbol of His life's blood that was spilled out for us. And as born-again Christians, we partake in the Supper, remembering the cross and the sacrifice that Christ made in our place for us. So we see that Christ commanded the church to participate in two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper.

He instituted these ordinances, and He commanded His disciples to practice these ordinances. And through Paul's writings, we see that Christ expected these ordinances to continue on in the life of those tangible New Testament churches. And, Luke Church, we faithfully participate in and practice these ordinances. I said earlier in December that we would participate in the Supper more often, about once a month. We're just not participating and celebrating the Supper often enough. But what about baptism? You're baptized after someone comes to saving faith.

When someone is converted to Christ, they're born again, and they go through good counseling to see evidence of saving faith, then they are baptized. So we need to get our baptistery ready, and we need to be praying for a harvest of souls. You know, I thought about it like this. Our church membership should turn out for the ordinances. When you see that we're going to have the Lord Supper our baptism, I'm telling you, you better ask off work to be there. I thought about all these guys that are involved and get excited about football, you know. They're not going to miss their football game. We ought to get excited about the ordinances.

Number five, meaningful church membership should represent a commitment to proclaim the gospel to the lost. Again, we see another divinely ordained purpose. We see the commandment from God to His people, the church, to proclaim the gospel to the lost. And I want to show us this in two ways. First, we see this in the Great Commission found in Matthew 28. Listen to verses 18 to 20. And Jesus came and said to them, to the disciples, and then by extension to all of us now, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, go.

Therefore, we make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. And second, we see this in the example of the New Testament churches. The heart of the story of the Book of Acts is the proclamation of the gospel and the building of the church. Those apostles and other believers were faithful to proclaim the gospel to the known lost world, no matter the risk. And they understood that it was the power of the gospel and only the power of the gospel that would save lost people.

The New Testament churches understood what Paul said in Romans 1.16. Paul says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation." You see? The gospel. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. So here we see that the church as an institution is to proclaim the gospel to the lost and thus saved as well. You might say, "Why the save?" Look, folks, as believers, the more we hear the gospel, the more we hear the gospel, the more we love our Lord because we are reminded that He died for us. But this is more than the responsibility of just the church.

What I'm aiming at is this. It is the personal responsibility of every individual within that church. Now, question, are we taking the gospel to the lost as we should? I don't believe we are. That includes me. We need the Lord to break our hearts for our lost family. That's one of the things that God's been dealing with me about through the end of the year and over the holidays. We've got too many lost people in our families, too many lost people in our pews, too many lost people that we know, and we've got to have God to save them. But who is going to tell them the gospel? Number six and the last.

Meaningful church membership should represent a commitment to submit to the elders placed over the local church. Here we see the last of these divinely ordained purposes of church membership. We must see the submission of oneself to the spiritual care of the elders of the church, and this is more important than you may know. Sadly, in our day and in our culture, the commitment to submit oneself to the elders placed over the local church can be minimized, ignored, even completely dismissed. Some of you need to see and understand that elders are to be the God-called qualified men.

God is given to spiritually care, teach, lead, and help govern the church and even you. And you know, as Baptists, elder leadership can seem strange, but it's thoroughly biblical in every way. Several passages here I want us to touch on. 1 Timothy 5, 17 reads, Paul's writing to Timothy. Remember, he's there at Ephesus as a pastor. He says, "Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor, work in preaching and in teaching." Here we see Paul briefly mention two of an elder's responsibilities in the church that is ruling or governing the church and also laboring in preaching and teaching the Word.

But the Apostle Peter goes a little further than Paul in 1 Peter 5, 1 and 2. He says, "So 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. As an Apostle, Peter also fulfilled the role of an elder. And he was giving instructions to other elders within the church. He clearly lays out two of the three responsibilities of the elders of the church.

First, to shepherd the flock of God, to pastor the flock of God, second, to exercise oversight or governing the flock. But how was he to do this work? Not shamefully, not in a domineering way, but eagerly by being an example to the flock in every way. You see that? More and more passage that we need to see. Hebrews 1317, we haven't gotten this far in our study of Hebrews. But remember the writer of Hebrews is writing to a mostly Jewish congregation. And what does he say? "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that wouldn't be of no advantage to you." The writer of Hebrews was calling these believers in this church now to submit to the leaders that God had appointed over them. And he used two words here, "Obey and submit." And these can be two words that we do not like. But notice why God gives this instruction. God called and qualified elders have the very authority of Christ when they pastor and shepherd God's people. That needs to be repeated. God called, qualified elders have the very authority of Christ when they pastor and shepherd God's people.

They have the very authority of Christ when they govern and lead the church. They have the very authority of Christ when they teach and they preach and they apply the scriptures to the local body. Simply God called elders, served the church on behalf of and for Christ, you see? Therefore, the body or the church is responsible to submit to the care and even the authority of the elders in the life of the church. And look, Grace Life, I have faithfully served you. I have faithfully served our church for almost 15 years. Perfectly no. Faithfully yes. And I'm thankful to say that Brother Keith has faithfully served as an elder as well.

I'm thankful for the faithful leadership of Tommy and Jared as elders as well. We faithfully serve you. Not perfectly now. And this morning I renew my commitment to serve you as we see in the scripture. I renew before God in you, before you in God, I renew my commitment now. This is a divinely ordained commitment to serve you as we see in the scripture. 1 Timothy 5, 17 says, "Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching." I renew my commitment to serve you by working hard in preaching and teaching. I renew my commitment to labor in preaching and teaching.

And then also 1 Timothy 5, 1 to 2, "So 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. Exercise oversight not under compulsion but willingly as God would have you. Not for shameful gain but eagerly. In here grace life I renew my commitment to shepherd the flock. I renew my commitment to pastor you even exercising oversight over you. Not under compulsion, willingly, gladly, lovingly as God would have me. Not for any kind of a shameful or sinful gain but eagerly.

And I believe I have lived those things out faithfully." Now look at what we've studied. Grace life, meaningful church membership. I do not believe we have seen just a glimpse now but we've seen quite a bit. But there's so much more we could study. This is meaningful church membership and what it should look like. Again, listen to John McRother's definition. I'm going to add to it. McRother says, "To become a member of a church is to formally commit oneself." I'm going to add covenant there.

"To become a member of a church is to formally covenant commit oneself to an identifiable local body of believers who have joined together for specific God-ordained purposes." I add to that here, "For specific God-ordained commitments." And I close by speaking to the members of Grace Life. Let's renew our commitment to our church membership. Let's renew our commitment to our responsibilities that are attached to our membership. And if we are all spirit-filled, if we are all spirit-guided here, and we all renew our commitment to our church membership, that spirit-filled commitment will help us to do two things.

All have a mighty expectation for our church and to be faithful, in being faithful, to the open door ministry that God has set before us. Now, this leads me to the title of our message. It's not just meaningful church membership. Our commitments, our divinely ordained commitments to meaningful church membership. Let's pray.