Church Membership Matters

If you have a Bible, go and grab it and turn to the book of Matthew. We're continuing our series through the church. Normally what we do every week is what we call expository preaching where we take a book of the Bible and we go through it verse by verse procedurally and see what the author and what God was trying to say in that book.

We're doing something a little bit different. For the last two weeks and for the coming six weeks, we're going through a topical series particularly on the church, as we're continuing to work and think about the church as we're getting ready to look at our constitution and bylaws. By the way, if you're interested in serving on the Bylaw Committee, please talk to me before I present nominations at our members' meeting.

But more important than any structure that we decide as a group, or however the politics of that works out, what's more important is what God has to say about how we function in the church. There are main things that we are called to focus on. So what we're doing in this series, rather than going verse by verse through a book in the Bible, is examining Scripture at large to see what it says about different topics.

Two weeks ago, we looked at Scripture and how God's Word becomes the ultimate criteria and standard by which we determine what we do as a church. Last week, we looked at the Gospel, how the Gospel message provides substance for us in terms of where we find our salvation and also shapes and forms how we act as a church through baptism and the Lord's Supper.

This morning and for the following weeks, we're really taking those two things, Scripture and the Gospel, and now getting down to the nitty-gritty. If the Bible and the Gospel are true and become the standard and the material with which we build our church, then what does that look like?

This morning, we're going to start by looking at the topic of church membership. Church membership from Matthew chapter 16, verses 13 through 20. If you're visiting us here this morning and you don't have a Bible, feel free to use that pew Bible in front of you. You can turn to the book of Matthew after looking at the table of contents. If you don't have a Bible, just keep it. We want you to just have a copy of God's Word. Feel free to read it yourself. The book of Matthew is a great book to read to read more about the life of Jesus. Again, I'll be reading from verses 13 to 20.

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But you,” he asked them, “who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.” Then he gave the disciples orders to tell no one that he was the Messiah.

— Matthew 16:13-20 (CSB)

Let's pray. We do pray, Lord, that as we look towards Your Word, as we think about Your Kingdom here on earth, that You would help us to be good stewards as Kingdom citizens. We do pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Meaning of Citizenship

"I hereby declare on oath that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen. That I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. That I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law. That I will perform non-combatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by law. That I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by law. And that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. So help me God."

Two hundred and fifty years ago yesterday, our nation was founded. And roughly twenty years ago, I recited these words to become a citizen of the United States of America. If I'm being totally honest, I had no idea what I was talking about. I was like ten, right, agreeing to be drafted by the United States for the purpose of military service. I mean, what kid knows what it means to bear arms when required by law? And yet, these words carried meaning. It changed who I was. And in those words is contained the content of what I was committing to.

To become a citizen of the United States was more than just being born, more than just something that I was assuming. But that citizenship to the United States of America meant submitting to this country, to this Kingdom. Real commitments to a real country made me a real citizen.

What about God's Kingdom? Many Christians today go to church but have no idea why. They participate in the Kingdom of God, and yet their commitment doesn't seem to be meaningful at all. Many Christians are more committed to Costco than they are to their own churches. But if Jesus is King—if He's really King who reigns over the entire universe, if He's called us out of the domain of darkness into His marvelous light—then that means that you and I aren't just worshipping Jesus as our Savior who saves us from our sins, though that's certainly true. We also worship Jesus as our Lord, as our King.

Living life in the Lord's Kingdom means that it also comes with that Kingdom's citizenship, what we would call church membership. So what I want to argue for this morning is that membership matters. That membership matters.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to try to go over Scripture to explain this concept of what it means to be a member of a church—not just going to a church, not just tuning into a church online, but being a committed member of a church. I'm going to survey Scripture to try to see what it says about Christ's kingship and by extension what we're supposed to be as Kingdom citizens.

Think of this sermon as happening in two parts. I liken it to a coloring book. The first part is going to try to draw out the outline of what we mean by church membership—the borders, the boundaries, who's inside and who's outside. You ever see a two-year-old with a coloring book with their crayon? If you don't have boundaries, it's utter chaos; they have no idea what they're doing.

At the same time, in part two, we're going to try to color in within those boundaries to see, with those insides and outsides, what the life inside the church is supposed to look like. A coloring book without boundaries is chaos, and a coloring book without color is dull, right? So consider this sermon having two parts: first, we're going to look at Kingdom authority—these boundaries, these lines; and second, we're going to look at the Kingdom community—what life within this Kingdom is supposed to look like.

Kingdom Authority

Let's start with part one, Kingdom authority. What church membership does, what having this explicit commitment to be part of a church does, is it identifies who is in God's community. It starts by understanding that Jesus Christ is King. You can see that there in Matthew 16. Let me read again from verses 13 to 16:

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But you,” he asked them, “who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

— Matthew 16:13-16 (CSB)

Jesus, continuing His earthly ministry, puts out a poll in front of His disciples. He asks them, "Hey, what are people saying about Me? What's going on in the blogosphere?" And Peter answers correctly when Jesus asks them, "Okay, now you told Me who other people say—prophets, whether it's Elijah or someone else. Who do you say that I am?" Peter says, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

For the first time in the entire Gospel of Matthew, we have a follower of Jesus boldly declaring accurately who He is: that Jesus is the Messiah. This word "Messiah" means the anointed one, this prophesied King who would come and redeem Israel and establish God's Kingdom on the earth. When Peter is observing Jesus' earthly ministry, he's recognizing that Jesus is different. He's not just a teacher who is telling people truths about who God is. He's not even a prophet who's authoritatively declaring the words of God. He is those things, but He's more than that. He's the King. He is the anointed ruler. Jesus came to reign. And in doing so, Peter pledges fealty, loyalty to this King—the first person in Jesus' ministry who rightly recognizes not just Jesus' unique spiritual role in terms of delivering us from sin or teaching us things about God, but establishing His Kingdom.

That's exactly why Jesus affirms Peter, which we'll get into later. But Jesus as King establishes His Kingdom and His rule in ways that would be unlike anything that the world had seen. You can see that if you just skip down to verse 21. This is right after Jesus establishes His Kingship. Look at how Jesus describes His kingly action in verses 21 through 23:

From then on Jesus began to point out to his disciples that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, “Oh no, Lord! This will never happen to you!” Jesus turned and told Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns but human concerns.”

— Matthew 16:21-23 (CSB)

Immediately after Jesus establishes that He's the King of the universe, He then says, "I'm going to die, suffer on a cross, rise again three days later." And Peter, while he recognizes who Jesus is, did not fully understand what Jesus was about to do. He says to Him, "That's not all right. Over my dead body." Jesus looks at Peter and calls him Satan because he's standing in the way of what Jesus came to do.

Even though Jesus rightly is the Messiah, the anointed one, the King who came to rule, the way that He would rule, the way that Jesus would establish His Kingdom is through suffering, death, and resurrection. That is not just what Jesus would do; it was necessary that He would come, suffer, and die.

Why was it necessary? The reason why it was necessary was because of our sin. As we heard last week, the wages of sin is death. All of us deserve to die because of our sin, our rebellion against a holy God. Because of our sin, we deserve to suffer under the domain of darkness, under the judgment of God as rebels against His kingly authority.

But God, out of His kind grace, sends His Son, the anointed King, to do something that He deemed necessary to redeem rebels like you and me and to bring us into the Kingdom of Light. He suffered on the cross. He bore the penalty of sin that you and I deserved, died on the cross, and then rose from the dead three days later, conquering evil and death forever. This means that if you turn from your sin, stop pledging allegiance to your sin, and instead pledge loyalty to this King, turning to Jesus alone for your salvation, you can be forgiven of your sin, not bear that punishment that you deserve, and be able to stand righteous before the Lord.

Jesus' work is absolutely necessary for our salvation. If you're not a Christian, that message is really the only message that matters for you this morning: who you think Jesus is. Because He's more than just a teacher. He's more than just a prophet. He is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Who do you say that Jesus is? How you answer that question will determine everything about the way that you view yourself and what God has sent you to this earth to do.

But Jesus isn't just our Savior. He doesn't just save us from our sin; He's also our Lord. Jesus is King. That's exactly what Peter is doing when he recognizes who Jesus is: he is pledging allegiance to his ultimate King. By recognizing that He's King, he is saying, "I will submit to You."

Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to submit to Jesus alone as your Lord and Savior? Because if you do, it will look like doing what He says. That's exactly why Peter gets corrected immediately afterward—not because he wasn't saved, but because even though he was saved, he still needed to be corrected. For someone to pledge loyalty to Christ but still insist that Jesus fits your agenda is no different than being Satan yourself. Submitting to Jesus as the Messiah means submitting to His rule, His Kingdom, to do it His way.

The Keys of the Kingdom

In other words, the primary task that Jesus gives to Peter as the first confessor who recognizes Jesus as King is to effectively represent the Kingdom of God here on earth. As subjects of the King, we are His Kingdom. Read with me from verse 17:

Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.” Then he gave the disciples orders to tell no one that he was the Messiah.

— Matthew 16:17-20 (CSB)

Notice what Jesus is doing with Peter right after his confession. He is establishing who Peter is and what Peter does. His name is Simon up until this point. He renames him. He tells him, "You are Peter. You are a rock. And on this rock, I will build My church."

Peter, as the first confessor, the first one to get the Gospel right, isn't becoming the Pope. I mean, he gets called Satan in just a couple of verses! This is not about him becoming some unique superhero for the faith. But him, as the first confessor getting the Gospel right, is this rock—this message forming a people. And on this rock, He would construct His church. First Peter says that we are living stones, built up as the temple of God.

In light of that house, in light of that temple, this group that He's built, this church that He's built, He also confers onto Peter Kingdom authority. You notice the words that He says there in verse 19: He gives him the keys of the Kingdom. The keys of the Kingdom. We all have keys. We have keychains or PIN codes that we use to be able to open doors. And these keys unlock something too. You see what they are described as doing: whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in Heaven.

People have misunderstood this verse for a long time to mean that if you turn the key, that means the church somehow affects you. Like, "If you talk bad about Pastor John, I excommunicate you, and you're thrust out of the Kingdom of Heaven and plunged into hell." That's not what's going on here. You can actually tell that's not what's going on here just based on the wording. Does it say that if you bind on earth, it will be bound in Heaven? No, it doesn't. It says this really weird, kind of clunky phrase: "whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven."

In other words, what we're doing on the earth when we are turning this key as a church isn't affecting something in Heaven or changing the reality of Heaven. It's actually lining up what we see on earth with what we see in Heaven.

Let me paint the picture for you. Someone like Peter shows up at the church. He says, "I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God." And as the church welcomes that person into membership, whether it's through baptism or through statement, when they become a member of the church, what First Baptist Church of Artesia is doing is we are turning a key. We are saying as a Kingdom embassy, "You are a Kingdom citizen. We are recognizing that you are under the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ."

And as we turn that key, what we're doing is we are lining up what exists on the earth—our list of those who are in the Body of Christ, who are members of Artesia—with what's going on in Heaven. When he came and professed faith in Jesus and he was welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven, now this earthly representation of the Kingdom of Heaven is lining up with what's going on in Heaven. That's what we do every single time we welcome someone into membership. What we are doing is an act of recognition.

In other words, the turning of the keys is an authoritative, official declaration as part of the Kingdom of Heaven: "You are with us. You are part of us." That's part of the reason why baptism and the Lord's Supper are a physical Gospel message, like we heard last week. Baptism and the Lord's Supper also become a public pronouncement of those who are in that body. It's integral to what we do as a church.

When we baptize people, what we're doing is we are turning that key by recognizing this person is born into the Kingdom. They are part of us. And what we do every single time that we recognize people through the Lord's Supper, we are turning that key by recognizing those who are in the Kingdom, those who are walking with the Lord, as well as excluding those who aren't walking with the Lord and saying, "Hey, you can't claim to follow Jesus and commit sin that's unrepentant at the same time." We'll talk more about that next week.

In other words, what we're doing is we are making public statements. We are recognizing. Church membership, in one sense, is a mutual recognition and identification of those who are in the Kingdom of God.

Now, at this point, a lot of people usually object by saying, "How dare you say that you as a church have the authority to say whether or not I am a Christian? I walked down the aisle when I was 10 years old, or I put my personal faith in Jesus. Are you saying, Pastor, that you as the institution have the authority to declare whether or not I did something when I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior?"

To which I want to say, "Kind of." Yes and no. But before you just write me off as some egotistical, institutional maniac, hear me out.

I've been to Mexico a couple of times in my life. I've never gone deeper into Mexico; I've only gone to TJ, right? But let's imagine for a moment that I go down to Tijuana. I hang out with some people down there, maybe see some missionary training agency like I brought some interns to a couple of years ago. On my way back, as I go through customs, I hit the border. I check my pockets and I realize I don't have my passport. I look at the border police officer. I'm like, "Listen, I am a citizen of the United States. I just read the freaking thing that I did, you know, a couple of years ago when I pledged allegiance to the US. I'm willing to get drafted into the US military. I mean, hear me talk. I can't speak a lick of Spanish. You've got to let me in, dude."

Even though I am actually a citizen of the United States, that border patrol officer should not let me into the country. Why? Because even though I ontologically in my being am a citizen of the United States, my words by themselves do not have the authority to recognize me as a citizen of the United States. I need to show him my driver's license or my passport or some other identification that the government, the authority, has given me to identify myself as a citizen of the United States.

It's the same way with Christianity and the church. Think about it: we live in Southern California. There are all sorts of people who claim to be Christian. You have people that believe in literally thousands and millions of gods, like the Mormons, who claim to be Christian. You have people that claim to be Christian in India that have a pantheon of other gods that they would just include Jesus to be a part of. I mean, you and I know this: if you meet someone on Huntington Beach or Venice Beach and they tell you that they're a Christian, you know you need to ask like four more questions before you figure out what they are.

In other words, you and I don't have the authority to officially declare ourselves to be Christians or not Christians. What do I have to do if I'm in TJ and I don't have my passport? I have to go to a U.S. embassy to get some kind of official authorization so that I can then show that officer, an authority outside of myself, "I am a citizen of the United States," and then be granted entrance.

Now, for those of you who aren't members of churches that are here, I am not doubting your personal salvation. I'm not trying to question your own repentance and trust in Jesus alone. I'm not trying to make some declaration on what happens to you when you stand before God on His judgment throne. That is not my place as an individual. But the church has the authority as the embassy of the Kingdom of God to make declarations on behalf of the Kingdom of God.

David is a member in good standing. He professes a true Gospel. He's committed to walk in community with His saints. And so far as our church knows him walking with them, he's not walking in a life that's inconsistent with the Gospel that he proclaimed. We're able to say that for all 50 of our members here as a church. That's what we are called to do as part of the Kingdom.

As an embassy of the Kingdom of God, what First Baptist Church of Artesia does as we turn the keys through church membership is we are formally declaring on behalf of the Kingdom of Heaven, "This person is walking with the Lord." "This person has a consistent profession of faith. This person has trusted in Christ alone for their salvation. And we, as an embassy of the Kingdom of God, are officially giving them a passport. We are stamping them. We are giving them that visa approval."

So those are the boundaries. That's kind of the outline that we're sketching whenever we do this process of church membership.

Kingdom Community

But if that's Kingdom authority, here's point two: Kingdom community. Church membership recognizes those who are in the Kingdom, but it does more than that. It does more than just color the outline. It is also an explicit commitment to take mutual responsibility for one another's discipleship.

If Kingdom authority and the outlines provide a mutual recognition—you are officially in or you are officially out—church membership also takes explicit mutual responsibility for one another's discipleship. All the things that we desire in community are actually shaped and formed by these unique boundaries of covenantal care that we give to each other.

The description of unique Christian community that you see in Scripture is all over the place. If you read the New Testament, you may see commands of the "one another"s—things that you are called to do as citizens of Christ. You may even recall the words of Jesus in John 13:34-35: "By this all will know that you are My disciples, by the way that you love one another." Beautiful pictures of what Christian community is supposed to look like.

What an understanding of church membership helps us with is understanding that that description of unique Christian community actually requires, necessitates, the prescription of clear boundaries within the church. If you pay attention to what those "one another"s are actually saying, what they're doing is they're giving you the criteria of expectation for what those inside that boundary are supposed to do—what meaningful life is supposed to look like.

Last week I gave the analogy of a garden. You have its walls that protect the garden, prevent rabbits and other wild beasts from coming in and just eating up all your crops. But the culture of the Gospel is its roots, the plants that actually cultivate and grow. So you need to pay attention to the borders, but you also need to pay attention to the plants.

Let me give you another illustration from my friend Matt Smethurst. If you watch the movie Home Alone, Kevin McCallister one night is alone, freezing, walking, tired. And he looks up and he sees a house. And that house has windows that he can look into and gaze, and he's able to see this wonderful family enjoying each other's fellowship—hugging, enjoying food, caring for one another, loving one another during the Christmas season. And you see Kevin looking longingly into that house and wishing that he could be with his own family.

Now, imagine that that house had that family enjoying themselves, and they see Kevin outside freezing in the cold, and they say, "You know, we're having such good fellowship here. We're having such a good time, such warm fellowship and community. What we need to do is we just need to open every single door in our house so that anyone can come in any time that they would like."

That would actually ruin the picture of what's going on in that home because, unlike L.A., Chicago is really cold. The moment you open the doors, frigid winds come in and all the warmth and community that they have is lost because they did not have proper boundaries. At the same time, if that house shut their doors and then, out of fear of losing heat, boarded up all their windows so that no light leaks out and nobody could look in, well, then Kevin would have never known the warmth that exists inside that community that they could have been a part of.

Membership is the door; the culture is the windows. In other words, you can't have an inviting Christian community without windows, without letting people see the love that exists within the church. And you can't have a warm community without doors—without clear distinctions of those who are in and those who are out.

I want to show you, just by looking at a couple of verses in the Bible, that the boundaries and the culture exist together in the way that the New Testament understands church community. Let me start with this angle: the New Testament provides tons of biblical evidence for this, but let me just focus on three special aspects of the church that we value that the church has by having this inside and outside.

Special Love, Responsibility, and Leadership

The first is special love. Feel free to turn there in your Bible if you want, or you can just listen along. I'll be jumping around in different parts of the New Testament. First Peter 2:17 says:

Honor everyone. Love the brothers and sisters. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

— 1 Peter 2:17 (CSB)

Notice what Peter is telling the Christians to do. He is not saying that because you are under Christ and part of the community of Jesus that you shouldn't care for anyone else. He's saying, "You should seek to honor everybody, regardless of whether or not they're with Jesus or not." Because they bear the image of God, because you are being formed into the image of Christ, you are called to honor everyone—and you are to love the brothers and sisters.

In other words, there is a unique love that exists to the brothers and sisters. There is a two-tiered kind of love that's happening here in 1 Peter: honor everyone, love the brothers and sisters.

Paul picks up that same idea in Galatians chapter 6, verse 10:

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.

— Galatians 6:10 (CSB)

So who are you supposed to work for the good of? Everybody, right? "All" in the Greek means all, like everyone. You're supposed to seek the good of everyone. And yet, he then adds, "especially for those who belong to the household of faith."

Notice his words there to those who belong, who are committed, who are a part of this household of faith. This means in order for it to be "especially," or for it to be special, there are those who belong to the household of faith, and there are those who do not belong to the household of faith. There is an inside and there is an outside. In other words, there is a special love that you're supposed to have for those who belong to the Body of Christ.

And we understand this intuitively. You guys know, like a month ago, I proposed to my fiance, hoping to get married, right? Megan's going to visit here in a couple of weeks, so look forward to that. But let's imagine that Megan was here in the front row while I was preaching this morning, and I just decided to riff and I said, "You know, I love all women equally."

How do you think that's going to go? Very bad. Very bad. I may have to cancel the wedding that's happening in October. It's really bad for me to say that I love all women equally. Why? Because the nature of the marriage covenant is that there's going to be something that I share with Megan that I don't share with everyone else. What makes it special is that it's distinct.

That's actually the case with all relationships that are meaningful to you in your life. Whether you have clear boundaries or not, the reason why certain people are your friends, the reason why you get along with certain individuals, isn't just because you get along with all people and all humanity—with all eight billion people on the planet. The reason why you're friends with them is because you share something with them that you don't share with everyone else. There's something uniquely special, uniquely valuable about that care, that friendship, that love. It's special. Or to quote Syndrome from The Incredibles, "If everyone's special, no one is."

Second, you have this special responsibility. Hebrews 10:24 through 25 tells us:

And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

— Hebrews 10:24-25 (CSB)

See that word "consider" in the beginning? When it's talking about considering one another, it's talking about more than just being considerate or just being respectful towards those who are in this building. He's talking about care. The word for that is also translated as "watch out," or "look out," or "care," right? The idea is that you have an ownership for these people. You belong to them, and they belong to you.

And the way that you consider one another is by provoking love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, and to encourage each other, because Jesus is coming back. So as you hold on to the confession of your faith without wavering, all the members of the church are like threads in a rope braided together to help you hang on to Jesus until He comes back.

And third, you have special leadership, in addition to special responsibility. Hebrews 13:17 makes it super clear:

Obey your leaders and submit to them, since they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they can do this with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

— Hebrews 13:17 (CSB)

So members, according to the author of Hebrews here, are called to submit to their leaders—to submit to them—which means conjugating what you want and following their leadership. And if you're not a member of a church, I think my question would be: Who are they? Who are those leaders that you would submit yourself to? Ultimately, if you're not committed to a church, you're not really submitting to anyone at all, which means that you would be in disobedience to this verse.

Now, I think that on the converse side, there are tons of examples of people abusing their authority or not executing their leadership well, or exhibiting character traits of leadership that are not worthy of submission. In the case that those people are leading in a way that's inconsistent with Jesus, I would tell you not just not to submit to them, but out of submission to Jesus, reject that kind of leadership. Reject that kind of leadership.

Not only that, Hebrews 13:17 would back you up in rejecting that kind of leadership, because those leaders—all leaders, including myself, according to Hebrews 13:17—have to give an account to God. When I die and I go before the Lord, He's going to pull out an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper like this and ask me how I cared for Richard Gilliland or Virgil Amalig or Miguel Solis, and I'm going to have to give an account for every single soul.

And let me tell you, that freaks me out. If I have to give an account for the souls that are under my care, I need to know who those people are. In other words, membership helps clarify what that responsible relationship looks like.

Defining the Relationship

In other words, you could think of church membership kind of like a DTR. You know what a DTR is? It's called "define the relationship." You ever see a bunch of junior highers that definitely have a crush on each other but won't admit it? They're spending a ton of time together, but whenever you ask them, they're like, "No, it's not what's going on." Now, if you're in junior high, just don't date, right? That's not in the Bible; it's just my advice, don't do it.

But if you're serious about someone and you're not making that clear, what you need to do is you need to sit down and have a DTR. You need to define the relationship. You need to make that commitment clear and explicit between the two parties.

Think of church membership kind of like a spiritual DTR. It is you sitting down and saying, "Hey, I'm committed to you, the church." And the church turning around and saying, "Hey, we are committed to you as well." And as you make that commitment to each other, what you're doing is you're drawing a clear boundary so that those commands of love and responsibility and oversight are able to breathe and flourish and have life together.

In other words, if you do this right, if you turn the keys of membership correctly, it really results in four aspects to these relationships.

First, you end up with relationships that are committed. A lot of churches have membership, and what they mean by membership is you fill out a card. Once you fill out the card, boom, you're a member. Well, what you win them with often becomes the thing that you win them to. Making membership super light and almost meaningless will make your membership very light and almost meaningless. We're talking about membership that actually seeks to obey these commands with each other. If you're curious about those things, you could read the church covenant that we recited last week.

Number two, you end up with relationships with a defined group of people. Notice all the language of an inside and an outside. I don't have time to get into it, but you could see that all throughout the Bible: Noah's Ark, there is an inside and an outside. Even the Jewish Temple, you have the inside and the outside. Same with the church: you have an inside and an outside.

Now, if you have real commitments with a defined group of people, that results in two more aspects.

Number three: it gives relationships that give permission to speak hard words into your life. I've talked with many married couples about this, and most of them that I've talked to will tell me that they fought more after they got married. After they got married, they ended up in more conflict, more arguments, more fighting.

Now, why is that? Is your marriage ring like the Ring of Power in Lord of the Rings—that you put it on and suddenly you get corrupted in your heart? Is that what happened? No, I think that dirtiness was there to begin with. It was there before you got married, and it came out after you got married. And the reason why it came out wasn't because marriage wasn't working, but because it was. That the trust that you have in each other actually brings things to light that wouldn't have come up to light if you didn't have that explicit commitment.

The trust that you have in each other leads to greater honesty, which often leads to greater conflict. But then, hopefully, by the grace of God, leads to greater intimacy and care and love. The same thing exists in the church. We want to have real care for each other, the real ability to address one another and love one another.

Which leads to number four: it also has relationships that are built on grace and not on performance. The reason why I love the members of my church is not because they're my favorite Christians—even though you are! It's not because they're extra awesome or they do a lot of good things for me. The reason why I love the people in my church is because Jesus died for them.

In other words, the relationships that we build aren't built on what other people offer you. This isn't a networking event. This isn't a fan club that you abandon the moment things get inconvenient. This is real relationships based on real identification, based on what Jesus has done for us. That's what membership does.

Our Response: Welcome, Watch Out, and Warn

In light of that, I just want to briefly go over three things that membership then affects in terms of what you and I do in our life as a church.

First, what do we do? We welcome. We welcome. In other words, what church membership is doing is more than just giving someone a membership card. It's not like you take a photo, they print out a card, they say, "Congratulations," and they give you a hug. That's not what membership is at heart.

Membership is to see. It's to look. It's to recognize that these people are worthy of your love and care. Every single time that we stand up and recite the church covenant together, every time we take the Lord's Supper together, what we're doing is we are identifying one another and saying, "We see you."

That also means that you will love those who are different from you. Because to be a member of our church, you need to believe the Gospel, you need to agree with our statement of faith and church covenant, and you need to agree to commit to this church. And that's it. Which means you will hang out with people that you would never hang out with otherwise.

Sometimes people tell me, "You know, I'm not committed to a local church, but I'm part of the universal church." Let me tell you what I hear when someone tells me that. What I hear is someone saying that I only hang out with the parts of Christ's Body that I like. And that is antithetical to the Gospel.

The Gospel is not about what people offer you or what they do to make you like them. The Gospel is about what Jesus has done for us, which means the standard for our membership is whether Jesus died for them, and whether or not they're able to walk in fellowship with our church. This means you will hang out with people that you would not hang out with unless Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And that makes Jesus look glorious.

Number two: watch out. Watch out. Think about Hebrews 10 talking about considering one another. In other words, you have a God-given responsibility to look out for each other, to care about each other.

Let me ask you: Do you care? More than just coming to service, do you actually care about one another? Are you invested in the life of this church? Do you pray for the members of our church? Pray through a membership directory. Pray when email requests go out. Do you call people and spend time with them, or invest in their soul to help them follow and love Jesus better?

Maybe you wish that someone did that for you. I encourage you: if you want to start watching out, start by reaching out. You can call someone during your commute to work. You can send someone a text message. You can start investing in the life of the Body and watching out and showing that commitment through your prayers, through your love, even through a smiling, welcoming face where you ask someone after service how their week was and you're actually interested in hearing how their week was.

Number three: we warn. We warn. We'll talk more about this next week, but we love people enough to recognize that their sin is real and worth addressing, which means you don't shy away when difficult topics come up. You actually lean in. You help. You come inside the mess. And you help walk with them through those things, even if it results in the painful act of recognizing, "You're not walking in any way that would make you recognizable as a follower of Jesus."

So let me ask you: Where is your ultimate allegiance? Because when we stand before the Lord in glory, our declaration that we make before our God won't be a declaration about all the stuff that we will do for Him or all the ways that we will serve our country. Our declaration will be built on what Jesus has done for us. Our declaration will be built on His kingship.

Our church right now is seeking to be a foresight, a shadow of what is to come—that one day all of us, with all of the members of Christ, will stand as one new eternal nation, declaring with all of our hearts to our Lord and Savior and King, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Let's pray. We do thank You that You are King and that You reign over our lives. We pray, Lord, that You would help us to continue to be faithful to You. Help us, Lord, to be able to be a church that cares, that takes this authority and exercises it responsibly, that truly loves one another in a way that makes Jesus look glorious. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.