August 28, 2016

Church Membership Invites Commitment

Preacher: Josh Tancordo Series: Doing Church Biblically Scripture: John 13:34–35

Church Membership Invites Commitment

This evening, we’re going to continue our series on “Doing Church Biblically.” This is a sermon series that’s actually more of a church membership class. Because, typically, our sermons will go passage by passage through a particular book of the Bible. But this series of teachings is really a membership class that’s designed to prepare those who are interested to start Redeeming Grace Church on October 23. 

And last week, we started answering why have a formal system of church membership? We’re so informal in approaching many other things, so why the sudden formality with this? And we said that one reason to practice church membership is that membership facilitates clarity. Just like the Bible draws a very clear line between the saved and the unsaved, Jesus tells the church to clearly distinguish between those two groups as well. And the way the church does that is by clearly defining its membership—who is a member and who’s not. 

So that was last Sunday. This Sunday, we’re still going to address the question, “Why have a formal system of church membership?”, but we’re going to approach it from a slightly different angle. We’re going to talk about how church membership invites commitment. So last Sunday, we talked about membership facilitating clarity. This Sunday we’re going to talk about membership inviting commitment.

I think a lot of people imagine that church membership is a lot like being a member of L A Fitness. You basically just show up, tell them you want to be a member, and sign the paperwork. Of course, at L A Fitness, you have to pay a small membership fee, but other than that, you’re not really making any significant commitment. I love how McDonald’s is right out front of the L A Fitness in West Mifflin. I used to go to that gym just to play racquetball, and then I would frequently be so hungry afterwards that I would stop by McDonald’s and get something off the dollar menu. I was bad. And you know what? L A Fitness never came after me. In fact, I probably could have stood on the sidewalk outside L A Fitness eating my cheeseburger and chain smoking cigarettes for good measure, and they wouldn’t have said anything to me. Being a member of L A Fitness doesn’t obligate me to any sort of healthy lifestyle. I also don’t any obligation to the other members of L A Fitness. I’m not responsible for helping them be healthy. They take care of themselves. If I wanted to, I could walk in to the facility, do my workout, and not be obligated to say a word to anyone else, and it would be fine. Membership doesn’t entail any commitment at a place like L A Fitness. 

And a lot of people think church is a lot like that. I can just put my name on the roll, maybe pay some kind of membership due by giving a token amount of money every once in a while, and I’m good to go—no further obligation beyond that. And that view of membership with the personal autonomy that our society commonly values. We have an allergy to commitments. We don’t want anything that might inconvenience us or keep us from doing whatever we want to do at any given time. Obviously, we have to have a job to pay our bills, but beyond that, it’s all about my needs, my schedule, my life. In reality, it’s a form of selfishness. 

However, if we look at the pages of the New Testament, we see that being part of a church is about a lot more than casually putting our name on a membership roll and politely giving a token amount of money every once in a while. Please turn with me to John 13:34-35 or it will be on the screen. Jesus says to his disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” So basic idea of this verse is pretty simple: Jesus calls us to love each other just like he’s loved us. “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” And as we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about tonight, this love Jesus commands in John 13 is a kind of love that includes commitment. 

And so, get this: because Jesus calls us to love each other in this way, church membership is a lot different than membership at L A Fitness. Unlike membership at L A Fitness, church membership invites people to commit to one another in love. That’s the main thing to get tonight: church membership invites people to commit to one another in love. So, following the patter of John 13:34, let’s first look at how Jesus has loved us and then, secondly, at how we should love each other. 

How Jesus Has Loved Us

First, Jesus’ love for us. He says, “As I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” So the question is, “How has Jesus loved us?” And the answer is that Jesus has loved us with what I’ll call a “covenant love.” John 13 doesn’t contain that exact phrase “covenant love,” but I think that phrase accurately describes the kind of love taught in this text. 

Now, a covenant in the Bible is a sacred agreement with binding force. That’s what a covenant is: a sacred agreement with binding force. In some ancient nations, the same word could actually be used to refer either to a covenant or to a fetter, like shackles or handcuffs. Many scholars also believe that the root word of the word for “covenant” actually meant “to bind.” And so a covenant is something that binds together two parties. So when I talk about covenant love, I’m simply talking about a unique kind of love—a love that entails commitment. 

For example, I love all women, but I love my wife in a unique way. If two women were drowning in a lake and I only had the opportunity to save one of them, I’m gonna save my wife. Also, to think on a more routine level, I spend the most time with my wife, I know her in the deepest way, I take responsibility for providing for her material needs. Basically, I give myself to my wife in a way that I don’t give myself to other women. Of course, if I saw another woman stranded on the side of the highway with a flat tire, I would help her change her tire. But I have a unique kind of love for my wife—a covenant love, a committed love—that’s reserved for her alone. 

We see a number of covenants in the Bible. One especially significant covenant is God’s covenant with Israel. When Israel became a nation, God made a sacred agreement with them where if they obeyed his laws, summarized in the Ten Commandments, then he would bless them and make them prosperous. In Exodus 19:5, he tells them, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples.” But if they didn’t keep his laws, God said he would allow disaster to come on their nation. And then the Bible records how Israel agreed to this covenant and agreed to keep God’s laws. Exodus 24:7: “Then [Moses] took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the [Israelite] people. And they said, ‘All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.’” And so, in response to that, God proclaimed in Exodus 34:10: “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.” So in this covenant agreement, God was bound to the Israelites, and they were bound to him. They had a covenant. 

But…this covenant didn’t work out. And the reason it didn’t work out is because the Israelites didn’t keep their end of the bargain. The Old Testament records how, over and over again, the Israelites turn away from God. In fact, no sooner does God give Israel the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 then virtually the whole nation worships a golden calf they make in Exodus 32. And throughout the rest of the Old Testament, just about every generation of Israelites, with few exceptions, is unfaithful to their covenant with God in a significant way. And as we read through the Old Testament, we just learn to expect to see their infidelity. 

Has someone ever made a commitment to you and you’re pretty confident they’re probably not going to keep it? It reminds me of leaving a message on people’s voicemails. Usually, the voicemail greeting will be something like, “Hey, this is John, I can’t get to the phone right now, but if you leave me your name and number, I’ll be sure to get back to you as soon as possible.” And whenever I listen to a voicemail greeting like this, unless John is a close personal friend of mine, I’m usually thinking to myself, “Yeah right, there’s like a 20% chance John is actually gonna call me back.” You know, I think that instead of voicemail greetings saying “I’ll be sure to get back to you as soon as possible,” they really should say, “I’ll get back to you if I feel like it—and even then, it’s still a bit iffy.” That would be a more accurate voicemail greeting. So with voicemails, we just understand that many people are not going to follow through with the commitment they make in their voicemail greeting. Unless we’re close friends, we just expect them not to get back to us. And that’s the way it is pretty much constantly with Israel in the Old Testament. As we read more and more, we just expect them to fail. God actually compares them repeatedly to an unfaithful wife who prostitutes herself with other men. 

So God made what he calls the New Covenant. He says in Jeremiah 31:31: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” And the main difference between the old covenant with Israel and this New Covenant is that the New Covenant isn’t dependent on us doing our part to keep the covenant. It’s not dependent on our performance. Instead, God commits himself to keeping both sides of the covenant. He keeps his side, and then he also keeps our side in our place. And the way he does that is through Jesus. 

You see, when Jesus came to this earth as a human being, he lived a perfect life in our place. The Bible describes how he fulfilled the requirements of God’s law perfectly. All of those standards that Israel in the Old Testament found impossible to attain—Jesus attained them in his life. He was perfect; he was sinless. And then, Jesus died on the cross to take the penalty for all of the ways we’ve failed to keep God’s law and rebelled against him. Jesus took the punishment we deserved. That’s why Luke 22:19-20 records this story of Jesus eating a meal with his disciples: “And [Jesus] took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’” So Jesus uses this meal with his disciples—specifically the bread and wine present at this meal—to illustrate how his death is going to save them. And he specifically calls it “the new covenant in my blood.” And then after Jesus dies, he’s resurrected from the dead so that he can be in a position to save all who come to him—all who agree to the terms of this New Covenant by putting their confidence in Jesus’ merit instead of their own. 

So the New Covenant is what we commonly refer to as “the gospel,” and the terms of this New Covenant are God providing everything that’s necessary for our salvation. So back to our main text in John 13:34. When Jesus says, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another,” he’s talking about covenant love. He’s talking about the way he’s publically committed himself under the terms of the New Covenant to love us, to graciously pursue us even when we’re headed in the opposite direction, and to provide everything we need for salvation. That’s how Jesus has loved us. It’s a covenant love—a love that entails commitment to very specific covenant promises. 

How We Should Love Each Other

But the verse doesn’t end there, does it? No. Jesus says, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” We’re called to have that same covenant love for each other. And that’s our second point this evening. Having looked first at how Jesus has loved us, let’s now look at how we should love each other. And, like we said, the way we’re called to love each other is with a covenant love—committing ourselves to each other just like God has committed himself to us. And the way we do that is by having a church membership covenant. A church membership covenant spells out our commitments to each other. Just like God loves us by spelling out specific commitments in the New Covenant, we want to love each other by spelling out specific commitments in our church membership covenant. 

So here’s the covenant. 

As you can see, it begins with the commitment, “I pledge my support to the Statement of Beliefs, Constitution, and Bylaws of Redeeming Grace Church.” That Statement of Beliefs is on our church website, and it just spells out the basic things we believe. I’ll also make the church’s constitution and bylaws available to you, which are just legal documents that spell out how we’re going to do things at Redeeming Grace Church—leadership, membership, property, calling for a vote on different issues—11 pages total. 

And then, here are the specific commitments we’re making to each other. And I didn’t put any Bible verses on this sheet, but just know that there are numerous Bible verses behind each one of these. As you can see, they’re arranged according to the three marks of a healthy church we’ve talked about in previous weeks: communion with God, community with each other, and commission to the world.

I purpose in my heart to seek daily communion with God by...

  • Reading the Bible and praying regularly 
  • Repenting of sin and pursuing a godly lifestyle 

I purpose in my heart to live in community with other believers by...

  • Faithfully and consistently attending church gatherings
  • Pursuing close relationships with others in the church
  • Ministering to others in the church according to my gifts and opportunities 
  • Practicing generosity by giving a tithe (10%) of income at minimum or actively pursuing that level of giving
  • Resolving conflicts biblically and without gossiping
  • Following the leadership of church elders as it accords with the Bible
  • Supporting and submitting to redemptive action (church discipline) as outlined in the Bylaws [I’ll explain more about what that is in a later sermon]

I purpose in my heart to be engaged in my commission of making disciples by...

  • Intentionally building genuine friendships with non-Christians 
  • Sharing the gospel as I have opportunity
  • Teaching others how to be disciples of Jesus

And then it has a place for your signature.

Also, notice the wording: “I purpose in my heart” to do each of these things. That means we understand that we’re not going to be able to do these things perfectly. You’re not capable of being a perfect church member, and I’m not capable of being a perfect church member. We’re gonna mess up. That’s the whole point of the gospel. That’s why God keeps both parts of the New Covenant. That’s why we need Jesus. But we’re committing to at least strive for these things together.

Conclusion

And please understand something as we talk about all of this: this is something you should desire. You should desire this kind of covenant relationship to other Christians. From what I’ve observed, the most satisfying relationships are those that are enjoyed in the context of mutual commitment. 

For example, think about marriage. Of course, not every marriage is enjoyable; some are quire miserable at times. And even good marriages can be difficult during various seasons. But think about marriage when its everything God intended for it to be. Some of you know that I was a hospice chaplain for 3 years, and remember ministering to this one married couple, Jerry and Susan. Susan was the one on our hospice service, so I visited their house every two weeks. And she had dementia that had progressed to a significant extent so that she wasn’t really able to do much of anything beyond just sitting in a room. But I distinctly remember how Jerry cared for her. You know, marriage vows talk about being committed to each other “for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part,” and that’s exactly what Jerry did. Susan couldn’t even speak his name or reciprocate in any obvious way, but Jerry would talk to her, he would sing to her with his guitar, he would stroke her hair, he would feed her, help her with personal hygiene. And he loved it, and with whatever mental capacity she had left, I think Susan loved it too. 

God gave us the gift of marriage because he knows that the most satisfying relationships are those that are enjoyed in the context of mutual commitment—relationships where we don’t have to be afraid that the other person will leave us behind as soon as they see a better option. And that’s also why God gave us the church—so we could enjoy relationships with other Christians nurtured by covenant commitment. Of course, it’s not a commitment “until death do us part.” You’re not in sin if you change churches. But there’s still a very real commitment to each other as we follow Jesus’ instructions in John 13 to love each other just like he’s loved us, even making specific covenant commitments that echo his covenant commitments to us. And that commitment gives us the sense of belonging it seems like we’re hard-wired to crave, and it also give us the security of knowing others are looking out for us and are committed to help us during times of need. And because of that, I believe that being in a covenant relationship with a healthy local church will probably be one of the greatest blessings of your life. 

other sermons in this series

Feb 28

2021

Matthew 26: The Lords Supper

Preacher: Josh Tancordo Scripture: Matthew 26:26–29 Series: Doing Church Biblically

Oct 16

2016

Trusting in Man vs. Trusting in God

Preacher: Josh Tancordo Scripture: Jeremiah 17:5–10 Series: Doing Church Biblically

Oct 9

2016