Sermon Notes 6-15-2014

Riding For The Brand (Sermon 1)

I Will Be a Functioning Church Member

Week 1: I Will Be a Functioning Church Member

Today I want to cover 4 points about being a functioning Church Member. We need to understand what the bible teach us about what God expects from each one of us, how we are placed in a church to be a part of the body, how we are all necessary parts of the whole body, and we are different but still work together, and how all of this is based on the BIBLICAL foundation of Love!

Membership Means We Are All Necessary Parts of the Whole

There are a number of places in the New Testament where we can see a clear picture of church membership.

One of the biggest sections is 1 Corinthians 12 to 14. In

A Body with many members!

·      In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul explains the metaphor of the church being a body with many members.

1 Corinthians 12:12–27 (NLT)

¹²The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ.

·      We are a body of many parts

·      We continue to grow and add to it, I know some of you want to stay the same but this is Gods plan not ours

¹³Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.

·      We all are to be of one mind and one mission

·      We have to leave our personal needs aside

¹⁴Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part.

¹⁵If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body.

¹⁶And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body?

¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?

·      There is no lesser Job in the body

·      We all serve a unique purpose

¹⁸But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it.

·      This is not about you or me

·      This is Gods plan

·      This is Gods Vision We are soldiers

¹⁹How strange a body would be if it had only one part!

·      We all cant be one part, but many parts make up the body

²⁰Yes, there are many parts, but only one body.

²¹The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”

²²In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary.

·      Don’t ever let Satan tell you your not important

·      Don’t let Satan tell you that 5 dollars wont matter

·      Plenty of people will show up, I wont matter

·      Look around you not one person gave it all, we all gave and made this happen!

²³And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen,

²⁴while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity.

·      God loves us all and cares for us all the same

·      I am the least of you all

·      It’s the one who make this happen who deserve the praise

·      We are to protect the body at all cost

·      If your new, we should come along side you

²⁵This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other.

²⁶If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.

²⁷All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.

·      We must pull together

·      We must lift each other up

·      We must care, nurture, love, and protect the body

·      There are Wolves all around us, False teachers, Satan sends them and we must protect each other!

It’s all about Love!

·      In 1 Corinthians 13, he established love as the central attitude and action all members should have.

1 Corinthians 13:1–13 (NLT)

¹If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

²If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.

³If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

·      Jesus said and we planted this Church on John 13:34

·      We can be the punchiest, rodeoionest church around, but if we don’t love other and each other it will be for nothing!

⁴Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud

⁵or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

⁶It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

⁷Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

⁸Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!

⁹Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!

¹⁰But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.

¹¹When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.

¹²Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

¹³Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

·      Church members Don’t:

o   Demand there way

o   Don’t get made and take their toys and go home

o   They don’t keep a tally of when some thing go wrong or the pastor makes a mistake

o   They don’t Give Up

o   They endure through Good and Bad times

·      Church member love much and forgive often

·      Church family looks past the bad in others, and loves the beauty that is Jesus with in

Some of us have got it all wrong!

·      And in 1 Corinthians 14, he returns to the messed-up church at Corinth that has the concept of membership all wrong.

1 Corinthians 14:1–5 (NLT)

¹Let love be your highest goal! But you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives—especially the ability to prophesy.

²For if you have the ability to speak in tongues, you will be talking only to God, since people won’t be able to understand you. You will be speaking by the power of the Spirit, but it will all be mysterious.

³But one who prophesies strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them.

⁴A person who speaks in tongues is strengthened personally, but one who speaks a word of prophecy strengthens the entire church.

⁵I wish you could all speak in tongues, but even more I wish you could all prophesy. For prophecy is greater than speaking in tongues, unless someone interprets what you are saying so that the whole church will be strengthened.

·      They were all caught up in the wrong stuff

·      They all wanted the coolest gifts

·      To be known as the one only God hears

·      But what they didn’t realize it Just hurts the body when we make it all about us

·      Stop living in the sin of pride and understand we are MEMBERS of GODS Church on ours!

This is not a country club, this is not about what we can do for you, this is all about Jesus and what we can do for him! It’s not about fancy programs, smoke, T-shirts, and you feeling comfortable!!! It’s about you Serving in a Local Body of Misfits, and rejects become one whole body and living for Jesus!

Membership Means We Are Different but We Still Work Together

1 Corinthians 12:12–14 (ESV)

¹²For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

¹³For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

¹⁴For the body does not consist of one member but of many.

·      With a country club membership you pay others to do the work for you.

·      With church membership, everyone has a role or function.

·      That is why some are hands, feet, ears, or eyes.

·      We are all different, but we are necessary parts of the whole.

1 Corinthians 12:25–27 (ESV)

²⁵that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.

²⁶If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

²⁷Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

·      Each part, therefore, has to do its work, or the whole body suffers.

·      There is a beautiful diversity in the midst of unity in church membership.

·      The Bible makes it clear that if one part does not do its job, the whole body does not function well.

·      But if one part does its job well, the whole body rejoices and is stronger

Membership Means Everything We Say and Do Is Based on a Biblical Foundation of Love

I cant Stress this enough!!

·      1 Corinthians 13 original meaning was to demonstrate how church members relate one to another.

·      Can you imagine 1 Corinthians 13 being read at an hostile church meeting?

·      In its full biblical context that might be the best place to read it.

·      If we could just abide by the principles of the love chapter, we would have completely healthy churches. It would be a revolution!

Lets look at some of the relational principles of 1 Corinthians 13:

“Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs” (vv. 4–5).

·      The principles of these two verses alone are sufficient to cause a revival in most churches!

·      We are not to love fellow church members just because they are lovable. We are to love the unlovable as well.

·      We are not to pray for and encourage our pastors just when they are doing things we like. We are to pray for and encourage them when they do things we don’t like.

·      We are not to serve the church only when others are joining in. We are to serve the church even if we are alone in doing so.

·      Church membership is founded on love. Authentic, biblical, unconditional love.