Paul reminds us in Ephesians 4:10–16 that membership in the church is all about Jesus Christ. All of what we are called to do, and to be, is summed up in Christ and will work itself out in every area of our lives. Dr. Joel Beeke calls attention to five aspects of Christ's connection to the church that reflect faithful church membership: Christ’s Word, His person, His people, His cause, and His image.

Ephesians 4, I want to read with you verses 10 through 16. Our topic, as you probably know from the booklet, is marks of a faithful church member. Ephesians 4, 10 through 16. He that descended is the same also that us send it up far above all heavens that he might fill all things. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking a truth in love, may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." Well, what I want to do in this talk is I want to unpack some of this profound teaching of Paul here in relationship to faithful church membership. But let's first go to God in prayer. Glorious and beautiful God, We thank Thee so much that Thou art the keeper, the establishment, the maintainer of Thy Church, and that Thou art, Lord Jesus, Thy Church's head and mediator, surety and testator, and that all is involved in thy church is under thy domain.

We thank thee that thou art the head and the church the body, that thou art the vine and the church the branches. We thank thee that thou art the chief cornerstone and we pray Lord that we may be worthy members, that may respond worthy living stones, that may be built up into a mature body in the church, as the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. Be with us now as we address this very important subject and please bless all those at this present moment who are giving seminars. Give that they may be edifying and that this may serve to thy glory. We pray in Jesus name.

Amen. Well for an annual fee you can be a member of your community recreational center where you have access to exercise equipment and a swimming pool perhaps. But if you never choose to visit the building, it's no problem. You can sit at home, you can eat ice cream all day, and you can never get your membership revoked. All you've got to do is pay your fee every year.

You're a member. You can be a member of a book club or a music club that offers you great deals on books and on CDs. Club mailings are sent to you, but once you've paid your entry fee, you're under no requirement to buy anything else. You can return a book, you can return a CD at any time, and you can cancel your membership. Well, in this kind of cultural setting today, I think you can understand that it's not surprising that membership in a local church has become non-demanding.

One congregation discovered that on an average 70 of its 233 members attend church worship services. Now the church leadership is of course partly responsible for easy membership by not upholding biblical standards and biblical discipline. But this is common all across America today. Many people are treating membership as a trivial thing. They treat the church like a museum that preserves memories and artifacts from the past to be revisited from time to time.

Others go to churches if it were a shopping mall, where you find programs and services that meet the needs of you or your family. Well, other people in reaction to this kind of easy membership, have come along and said, the church is more like a community outreach program. So, what we need to do is we need to draw more people to our services. So, we'll have car washes on Sunday evening rather than a second church service, or we'll go out and rake leaves. We'll make the second service a community outreach program.

We'll distribute food to the needy. We'll have a picnic in a nearby park. Worshipping God in the Lord's day is then replaced by social service programs, missionary outreach, films, recreation, entertainment. My dear friends, I say to you this morning, the body of Jesus Christ is what the Church is. And all of these views and all of these Band-Aid solutions do more harm than good.

It's a faulty view of the Church. And Ephesians 4, 10 through 16, which I just read to you, tells us that the Church is a body. The Church is a living, breathing organism. It's a spiritual and a relational body. Each Christian is a member, much as a hand or a foot is a body member of your body.

So, Christ is the head and every member is part of his body. I don't know if you've heard of a Scottish divine by the name of Ebenezer Erskine, one of the great seceders in the 18th century. But those were the days when pastors used to quiz their people and test them. He had a woman that was dying in his congregation. And he went to see her before she died.

And he asked her, is your soul right with God? She said, yes, by the grace of God, Pastor. He said, what are you building for eternity on? She said, only on the propitiatory sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he has me in the palm of his hand.

And the pastor said, but how do you know you're not going to slip through his fingers? And she said, well, pastor, because of what you told us. And he said, well, what have I told you? Well, she said, you told us you're a part of his body, so we can't slip through his fingers because we are a finger. You see, I'm part of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ if I'm truly born again.

And when I belong to the visible manifestation of that body in the church on earth, you see, I'm not an indifferent member. I'm part of the body. I can't stand aside and look at the church and just criticize it from a distance. I'm involved Just like you're a member of your own immediate family. You are a member of the corporate family of the Lord Jesus Christ So the real question this morning is what are the marks of belonging to the body of the Lord Jesus Christ?

And that's what I think Ephesians 4 sheds a lot of light on for us. And What I want to do this morning is I want to give you five clusters of marks by which you can examine yourself. Five groupings, areas of marks. First one is Christ's word. The second is his person and I'll explain these as I go along, his person, third is his people, fourth his cause, and fifth his image.

If you're going to be a faithful contributory member to the Church of Jesus Christ, you've got to respond in these five areas. Now, I don't want to muddy the waters here, but each one of these areas has a personal dimension, a public dimension in the church, and a practical dimension to live it out. So, five areas, three sub-points on each area. So, I'm going to give you 15 marks of being a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ. So, ready to go.

Area number one, receiving Christ's word. Receiving Christ's word. Ephesians 4, 11-13 tells us that Christ gives us pastors and teachers that we might all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So Christ has given his gifts to sinful men to come and teach in the church. And you as a faithful church member, you are to receive Christ's word.

Now, what are the three dimensions? Well, there's a personal dimension. And that is, and this is mark number one, personal hunger for the word. If you're going to be a faithful church member, my dear friend, in the very first place, you've got to have a hunger for the word. We pastors do a lot of preaching.

You come to the door of your church, people will shake your hand and say, I was a blessing pastor, or they'll just put the lights on. No. They'll just shake your hand and move on. You don't know what the sermon did to them. Other people can't express it.

That's fine. But you need to ask yourself this. Am I hungry for the word of God? That is a pastor's wages, having hungry people in front of them. We have a Dutch expression in our past that says, you pray me full, I'll preach you full.

But also, you pray me empty, because I have to preach as a broken vessel, and I'll preach you empty. And I'll break you so that you need the Lord Jesus Christ. But you see, either way, you've got to come hungry to the word of God. You mothers know what it's like to have a child maybe that had some snacks just before supper and you call them to eat, they're not hungry, they sit at the table, I'm not hungry mom, I can't do this, I can't eat that, and they're fidgeting. And you know it's not good that they had snacks just before supper.

They're full. They don't come with an empty stomach. You see, you've got to come with this appetite to the Word of God. That's the very first thing about being a good church member. I've got one man in my church.

He's a beautiful, simple, sincere Christian. And he often comes up to me as I walk into church Sunday morning. And he shakes my hand and says, Pastor, I can't wait to hear what the word of God has to say to me today. Wow, that does great things for me as a pastor. There's a hunger, at least I got one hungry person out of the 700.

But thank God I have more as well, but you see the more people there are in church that are hungry the better the minister is going to preach normally by the grace of God. So that's the first duty of a church member. Come hungry to the Word of God. You don't come hungry to the Word of God if you've been laid out on Saturday night till midnight And you rush to church, you got up the last minute, you haven't prayed, you come and you plop in your seat one minute before church is going to start. You're not hungry.

You can't be. You know what the Puritans used to say? They said, you've got to do like, in those days, what happened was women would bake bread on Saturday night and they'd keep it in their oven, their oven until Sunday morning and then they cut it at breakfast time. It was nice and warm and Richard Sibb said that's how you got to come to church You got to take some time on Saturday night to pray for the word Prepare your soul for the word and come with your heart warm and eager and hungry On Sunday morning, So that's the personal dimension of receiving Christ's Word. Public dimension.

So this is mark number two. Faithful attendance at corporate worship. Faithful attendance at corporate worship. The hunger for the Word is expressed of course at least in this amount that you come faithfully to the Word of God. Whenever you have a public service you are there.

How discouraging it is for a minister if you've got a service on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and he looks out over his congregation Sunday evening and half the people aren't there. Thank God, I don't have that problem. We have 700 people in the morning usually and about 650 in the evening, so we can't see much difference. But a lot of ministers, I know some of you who are ministers you struggle with this this is not faithful church membership what are you doing on Sunday evening where are you on Sunday evening when the living Word of God is coming to you from the pulpit by a man of God. As Calvin said, every sermon has two ministers.

One is the external man behind the pulpit, the other is the Holy Spirit. You're not hearing what the Holy Spirit has to say to you. On the day of judgment, think about this, you'll have to give an account for what you chose not to hear, but could have heard because of your own negligence Now I know of course there's times when you've got a lawful compelling reason Not to be in church, but make sure it's lawful and make sure it's compelling. Charles Spurgeon said, there's no worship of God that is better than hearing of a sermon. It stirs all the coals of fire in your spirit and makes them burn with a brighter flame and thus you ought to be present at every gathering of the people of God in your local assembly.

In Colossians 3.16 says, ''Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Recently, I was sitting on the plane next to a woman who tried to tell me that though she grew up going to church faithfully every Sabbath with her parents, She now moved from Iowa to Texas. She hadn't found a church yet, but she hadn't tried very hard. And well, anyway, it wasn't that important, she said, because I'm a Christian. I've got a good relationship with the Lord.

I talk to the Lord all the time. I tell him everything. You know, you don't have to go to church to be a Christian she said. I said do you believe the Bible? Well yes she said I believe everything.

I said from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 yes she said. I said well then you belong in church don't you? She said well the Bible nowhere says I have to go to church all the time. I said no. So why don't we look at it together?

So I opened my Bible turned to Hebrews 10 25 don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is. You see they had the same problem in New Testament times. She said well that that means I'm supposed to go to church then. I said yeah that's right. So I found out where she lived, I got her card and I emailed her a good church in her city and as far as I know she's still going to church.

She wrote me a couple times and I lost track of her. But you see, she was forsaking the assembling of her. She wasn't being a faithful church member. You belong to a body, you should be there. We've only been blessed with three children.

I have a brother with 13, sister with nine, another brother, another sister, five each. My mother has 35 grandchildren, 84 great-grandchildren, and it's wonderful to belong to a big family, isn't it? Many of you are, it's just wonderful. But if One is missing at the dinner table. It's just not the same.

You feel the empty place. That's how a pastor feels, by the way. When he looks out over his congregation and a couple families are missing, He feels the body's not complete. And how discouraging it is then to find out, well, so-and-so came to town and they hadn't seen him for a while, so they stayed home together to talk and visit. What?

When you're bringing the word of God and God is speaking? And it's the high point, it's the market day of your soul, as the Puritans used to say, going up to the house of God. And you are at home visiting with other people? Unfaithful church membership. So receiving Christ's word is a personal dimension, it has a public dimension, then it has a practical dimension, mark number three, active listening to the word.

Active listening to the word. I'll be talking more about that tomorrow in a plenary session in the family at church. But let me just say right here, you've got to prepare for listening. You've got to actively listen. And then you've got to retain it and you've got to be able to repeat it to your family to your friends And so you need to be in church not just there but preferably taking notes underlining understanding Maybe not in your head showing the preacher with the expression in your face that you're listening actively, that he feels you're not in, who knows what, building barns somewhere.

You've got to be listening. This is the word of God coming to you. So as soon as your mind wanders, just start up a quick prayer to God. Forgive me Lord, this is speaking to me, forgive me, help me to concentrate and get right back at it. Listening to the word of God.

You see, most sermons, if they're preached well, they build from point A. They don't give you the store right away but they build and build and build and build you see and there is a sense of suspense there is a sense of building up until you come to the apex of a sermon. Well, you tune out for five minutes. Under point one, you've lost the whole chain of thought. You're going to lose a good part of the apex of the sermon.

You're going to lose the thrust of it, the power of it, the connectedness of it. So that's why Jesus said in Luke 8 verse 18, take heed therefore how you hear. John Calvin put it this way. Whenever the gospel is preached, it is as if God himself came into the midst of us. So we had better take heed to how we hear.

Now, many of you are mothers, and you know what it's like to take a jar of baby food and feed your baby. But you don't feed a six-year-old from a jar of baby food. They've moved on. And what's beautiful about the ministry of the word and faithful church members is that they're there all the time. They hear the whole series of sermons, they don't skip a few.

And so they grow up in the word under your preaching so that you don't have to keep feeding them baby food. But you can actually get beyond spoon feeding them so that when they come actively listening, you know that they're taking something home from them. You don't have to repeat the sermon all sermon long. They're growing you see. By the grace of God, I'm in Grand Rapids 24 years now.

I can say lots of things to my congregation now that I couldn't say 24 years ago because they've been built up. They're used to the kind of word I bring. They're used to me being demanding on them as a listener because we preach in our circles. We preach fairly lengthy sermons and we don't repeat ourselves, so if they miss it the first time around, they're not going to get it again. So, they've been trained that way, they know they need to listen throughout the sermon.

What a blessing it is you see for pastor and people alike. When people start growing up and can feed on the Word of God and fill their own minds and their own souls as well. One woman in my church, she was actually a secretary for me until she was 85 years old and passed away. Just a God-fearing woman. She would take as many notes as possible.

We actually have three services, by the way. We have an afternoon one as well. She'd come to all three sermons or all three different sermons. She'd write and write and write. And she says, I go home in the evening, and I lay all my notes on the bed literally get down on my knees and I pray my way back through all my notes and she said that's usually the best part of my day.

Wow! She is really actively listening. So that's the first thing. Receive the Word of God. Private dimension, public dimension, practical dimension.

Mark number two, union with Christ person. Union with Christ person. Christ gives us his word to call us into union with him. All the growth we receive as church members comes out of this root, union with Christ, and out of it having communion with him. So a faithful church member is someone who is growing, as we heard last hour, in relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now what does that mean? Personally, publicly, practically? Well personally, Mark number 4 now, it means trusting in Christ. Personally trusting in Christ for your own soul and trusting in Him exclusively. You've got to have faith, true saving faith.

William Ames the Puritan said, faith is the resting of the heart on God. We believe through Christ in God. You can't get into the kingdom of heaven without faith. The moment you're born again, the Holy Spirit puts the seed of faith in your soul. You've got to live by faith.

And when you receive Christ by faith, you see, Luther said it's like a diamond on a ring. You don't glory in your ring. You don't, if you get engaged, don't go around like that, do you woman, and say, look at my ring. No, you say, look at my diamond. This is what's special.

So, faith in itself is not special by itself. Faith is special because its object is special. The Lord Jesus Christ. So that's what you need. Personal, exclusive, trusting in Christ for salvation.

More and more and more in your life if you're going to be a faithful church member. But what about publicly? Well, publicly, union with Christ is manifested as a faithful church member by your diligent use of the sacraments. You can't be a faithful church member without diligently making use of baptism and of the Lord's Supper. These are Christ's ordinances designed for public proclamation of your union with him and they foster greater communion with him.

These are empty rituals we go through. If you're in a church that's paido-baptistic or it's not If you see infants baptized or you see adults baptized or both baptized whatever whatever the your case may be It's not just about the people that are being baptized Every time there's a baptism you see, Christ is declaring as surely as water comes over that person, so surely I wash and cleanse by my blood all those who put their trust exclusively in me and are born again. You need to make diligent use of that. When someone's baptized, you ought to be overflowing with wonder and awe and what Christ has done for you. The same thing in the Lord's Supper.

Lord's Supper is even more public because you publicly in front of others declare what Christ has done for you. I'd like to see the Lord's Supper by the way this way. If you're a faithful church member I think you'll think of it in five ways. Number one, it's a remembrance feast. You're remembering Jesus Christ.

You're focused on Jesus Christ as you commemorate. Number two, it's a strengthening feast. It strengthens your faith. It assures you of your portion in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's surely as you eat that bread, you see all five senses are involved.

You see it, you taste it, you feel it, you enjoy it. The Lord is coming down to you in a low way, a condescending way. He's involving your senses. He's saying look at this, taste this, be assured of this, as surely as you eat this bread. So surely I've broken my body for you.

So it's a remembrance feast. It's a strengthening feast. It's a covenanting feast. It's the new covenant table. And as you receive God's covenant with you, so you covenant yourself and your life back to him every time you receive the Lord's Supper.

That's what a faithful church member does and it's a witnessing feast fourthly. You witness that you cannot live in your own strength. You witness that you can only live out of the fullness of Jesus Christ. And fifthly, as the Scottish divines used to say, it's a love feast because Jesus declares his love in it and I declare my love for him in return. And so publicly you see you make a diligent use of the sacraments and then practically union with Christ means obedience to Christ.

If you love me John 14 15 keep my commandments He that hath my commandments and keepeth them loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved to my father and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. So the more God manifests himself to us in Christ, the more we are called to obey him, we're always called to perfect obedience, of course, but the more we will want to obey him out of the best expression of love to Christ. If you really love someone, you want to please them. You want to do what they want you to do. So faith worketh by love, says Paul.

All right, mark number three. Mark number three. A faithful church member is connected, connected to Christ's people. You see that in Ephesians 4.16, don't you? Being fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth.

You see, joint here refers to a ligament or a tendon that holds together the bones and the parts of the body. It indicates strong connections that God expects within the body of Christ. You see, tendons are not just glued to bones. They contain strong fibers that penetrate into muscle and bone tissue to join them together. Muscle and bone cannot be separated without damaging both of them.

And so when Christ makes us part of his body, we also are joined together with other members of his body. Romans 12, verse 5. So we be many are one body in Christ and everyone, get this, members one of another. That's important. A mysterious, wonderful bond holds the Christian church together so that we affect each other in all kinds of unseen ways.

Now that's true of the local assembly. It's also true of the universal church, by the way. I count it to be one of the greatest privileges of my life to have opportunity to minister in many foreign countries. And it's amazing. You can go to the other side of the world you can meet someone in an airport who picks you up Who doesn't even know your language very well or knows it very very in minuscule form and before you're out of the airport You're bonded together in the Lord Jesus Christ and it's amazing different culture different languages just different customs, different looking people, and you're one.

This is a mystical union, not only with Jesus, it's also a mystical union with one another in ways that you can't express. Now this oneness you see is really a bondedness that's just like this muscle and bone being put together, Paul's saying. You know, right now I've got a pair of shoes on of course. My shoes are connected to my body. They've been attached now to my feet for several hours.

But if I kick my shoes off, I don't hurt, I don't laugh, I don't rejoice, I don't weep. It's no big deal. I just have my shoes off. But I've also had my feet on my body for a long time now, more than a few hours. If I tried to take my foot off, or you try to take it off, I would strongly object.

This is my body. It's organically connected to my body. It shares the same life blood system. It shares the same nervous system. Most church members in America today do not understand this.

Paul says we have need of each other. The hand and the eye need each other. The body needs the body. We're not lone rangers. We help each other.

Iron sharpens iron. We weep with those that weep. We rejoice with those that rejoice. We are one family. We're not a voluntary association.

We are interconnected, interdependent, interresponsible, if I can coin a word, interaccountable to each other. Well, what's the personal, public, and practical dimensions of this third mark then? Well, number one, or number seven, actually, we are personally connected by love. Ultimately, when you boil it down, this is what we are bonded together with, by love in the Lord Jesus Christ. First Thessalonians 4, 9 and 10, but as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you, for you yourselves are taught of God, to love one another.

So, personally, When you look around in church on Sunday morning, if you're a faithful church member, you love every single person you see, and you want to manifest that love. You know, in Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye asked his wife Goldie, do you love me? Goldie responds and says, For 25 years I've washed your clothes and cooked your meals and cleaned your house and given your children and milked the cow. And after 25 years you asked me, Do you love me? But she responds, do you love me?

You see, and too often we think when we go to church, We think we're faithful church members because we do a list of things. We set up tables and chairs, we teach Bible lessons, we prepare meals, we play music, we attend meetings. But after completing all of our to-do lists, Jesus Christ comes to you, my friend, and he says, but do you love me? Lovest thou me? This love demands a personal connection between us and Christ if we're going to be faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ.

And that love will manifest itself, Yes, in many of these things, but the motivation is the most important thing. Publicly, we manifest this by confessing our faith. Jesus said, whom say ye that I am? We publicly confess our faith. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, as we heard last night.

The identity of the church and the identity of the Christian are so tied together that the Christian must confess his faith publicly in the Church of Jesus Christ. Earl Blackburn puts it this way, the first responsibility of church membership is loyalty to the church. By loyalty to the church, I mean fidelity to the teachings of the church so far as they are loyal to the Word of God. It's only right then for a church to ask someone who desires to be a member to be loyal to its doctrinal position as defined in its statement of confession of faith. What about practice?

Well, number nine, we practice hospitality. We practice hospitality. If you've got this love to one another, you've got to put it into action. 1 Peter 4.9 says, use hospitality one to another without grudging. You see, the church aims to be a family.

And what characterizes a family? Well, it maintains fellowship. What does a family do together? Well, they do chores together, they eat together, they have fellowship together around the dinner table. We take that for granted, don't we?

But you realize that in many American homes today, you don't fellowship around the table. One of our theological students came from a broken home. He told me, I've never ever in my life sat around the table and fellowshiped with my family. I don't know what this is. Well, in a church family you see, too many Christians who fellowship among their own intimate family, every night they sit around the family table.

They talk, they laugh, they cry, they rejoice, They pray together, they read scripture, the family worship, wonderful. But they never bring anyone else in. They never show hospitality. A faithful church member interacts with other faithful church members. Maybe Sometimes you go over to their house, or they come to your house, and you fellowship around the table.

And you get bonded closer, you see. Alexander Strauch in his book writes about a woman who attended a church more than an hour's drive from her home. Every Sunday after morning worship, she'd eat lunch by herself in the church building and then stay on and attend the second service or go to a park or a library. She did this for four years before one family finally asked her over for a meal. What a tragedy.

You see, fellowship, connectedness is a lot more than friendly handshakes at the church door. True relationships, true building of the body requires spending time together, extending hospitality to each other, so that unbelievers can look at you and say, behold how they love one another. Hospitality is more important than we often think. And hospitality doesn't just mean meals. It means assisting one another in all things that belong to this life and a better, as our Dutch liturgy puts it, all things that belong to this life and a better.

When you fellowship with people in your church, do you ask them how they're really doing? Just yesterday, before I came, there was, well, two days ago now, a member of our church that I hadn't seen for a while. He just came, dropped in to see me, had something to bring me. And he looked me straight in the eyes. He said, how are you really doing, Pastor?

How are you really doing? Wow. I immediately felt, this man, this man cares. He really cares. It wasn't just how are you?

How are you really doing? Now that means I have to make myself vulnerable But it also means you see as he listens and he responds to me, when he walks away, I love him more than ever, and he loves me more than ever because I've been made myself vulnerable and we're bonded together. Then I turn around, of course, and ask him, and how are you my brother? How are you really doing?" Bonding happens. That's what happens in faithful church membership.

It's not just helping someone find a job, which is very important. Helping someone make repairs in their house, which is very important. Bringing a meal to someone, which is very important. But it also means talking with each other about real things, our real relationship with the living God. Which, sorry about that.

Oh no, it's fine. Do you want to put it in your pocket? Okay, yeah. With the living God. Sorry about that.

Okay, yeah. Number four. Mark number four is serving others for Christ. Serving others for Christ. Notice the end of verse 16, Ephesians 4, describes the mark of a healthy church as the effectual working in the measure of every part.

I don't know if those words ever struck you. Effectual working in the measure of every part. Every part of the church must do its job. In other words, we all have different gifts. My gift is not singing.

I've actually volunteered many times to join the choir, but the choir director is always looking for new people, for some reason doesn't want me. I can't sing very well. That's a joke in my church. Everybody knows it and everybody I think likes it that I can't do it, for some odd reason. But you see, God has given me other gifts.

God maybe hasn't given you the gift to stand up here and preach or teach. That's quite all right. But maybe he's given you the gift that you can stuff envelopes in your mailing that goes out. Maybe a mailing of sermons to 10, 000 people. They need someone to stuff envelopes.

Can you do that? Maybe God has given you a gift to visit senior people. Can you go visit all the shut-ins and just ask them how they're doing and bond with them and get close to them and pray with them? Maybe God has given you a gift for prayer. Can you meet with people that are hurting?

Can you visit people in the hospital and pray and pour out your heart for them. To be the body of Christ, we must be hands and feet on Earth to one another and to those even outside of our immediate body, serving others for Christ. Effectually working in the measure of every part according to the gifts. How does that apply personally, publicly, and practically? Well, number 10, we personally serve with zeal.

Jesus Christ's entire life was marked by zeal. Zeal is the most missing dimension of the Christian Church today. The Puritans wrote about zeal all the time. They've got seven or eight books, entire books on the subject of zeal. I'm actually co-authoring a book right now, Living Zealously with a Reformed Baptist brother.

What we're doing is we're taking those seven books, and we're taking the cream of what they're saying, and we're bringing it in contemporary language. We're going to publish that book next spring. What the Puritans have to say about living zealously. A faithful Church, remember, shows zeal, shows fervency. That's what the Scriptures say.

We must be fervent in the Lord, says Paul, in serving the Lord. Fervent literally means, in the Greek word, Burning hot like water, heated to boiling or metal, heated to the point of glowing. Burning hot for the Lord. We care about the church. We care about the kingdom of God.

We care about our brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ. My friend, if you're a faithful church member, you're zealous about the things of God, the cause of God, the people of God. This doesn't mean you go around and you throw your weight around or you thrust yourself into positions of leadership or teaching. It doesn't mean you draw attention to yourself. It can be an underhanded quiet ways, underhanded in a good way, a quiet way, helping someone in their need here and there, but taking on mundane jobs to assist someone.

They've got one of our theological students' wives right now is in her fifth month of pregnancy. She's got a lot of problems with it. She's got to lay down all the time. She's got six children. What's she going to do?

How can you lay down all the time as a mom with six children? Well, I called her and said, I want to pray with you and ask you how things are going. Do you have any help? Oh, yes, she said. People are coming in and helping me all the time.

I said, really? That's wonderful to hear. So, who's coming in? Who's helping you? And the first lady she mentioned is another student's wife, and the student had just arrived three weeks ago.

And this lady already somehow found out about the other lady is already over helping two days a week. She goes over there, helps all day for nothing. And has never told anyone. And there's people that have known this woman for years and they're not helping. But this lady knows her for three weeks and she's over there helping.

You see, there's plenty of work to do. If you're zealous for the Lord, you don't ever have to sit on your hands at home and wonder what to do. There's always people that need help in your church, beyond your church. What about publicly? Mark number 11.

Well, publicly you must witness for Christ. Look at verse 15. Paul says we should speak the truth in love. In this context, Truth is the knowledge of the Son of God. It's a Bible doctrine.

It's the gospel. You see if you're a faithful church member that means your neighbors, your coworkers, your friends, your family members all need to understand that even though some of them may not come to church to listen to you as a preacher, you can be their gospel friend by speaking a good word for Jesus in their backyard, in the lunchroom, on an airplane. You know we had a neighbor. We moved in, and sad to say, for a couple of months, I never even introduced myself. I was playing football in the yard with my son, and football went off the top of my fingers and went over the hedge into his lawn.

He was mowing the lawn, picked it up, threw it back at me. And so I just threw it back at him kind of as a joke. And we started talking. We introduced ourselves to each other. And I'm embarrassed to admit that for two months, or maybe even more, maybe it was three months, I never introduced myself to my neighbor.

It's crazy. It's bad. So we got to talking. He says, you know, what are you doing all the time, he says, in that building in front? I said, well, that's our seminary.

Well, he says, you're always over there. I said, well, I got quite a bit of work to do there. Well, you must be really dedicated to that work. Well, I said, I do care about. I got to train men for the ministry and so on.

He said, really? I said, well, what church do you go to? You know, I don't go to church. And oh, no. Well, why didn't you come along with me?

Why don't you come along with me? Oh, yeah, yeah, I'll do that, he said. Most people that say that don't, of course. Well, next Sunday morning. I called him up.

I said you want to come no he said Barbara The woman he was living with Barbara and I are gonna are gonna go ourselves this morning. Oh, That's great. That's great Monday morning He's knocking on my door at the seminary in it. I gotta see you us What's wrong? He just looks disheveled and He said man.

He said I'm a basket case man. He said I was in your church yesterday morning What'd you do to me man? He said I was sitting in that back pew, and people on the right, I would have got out if I could get out. I couldn't get out. I was trapped in.

He said, man, you took me by the scruff of my neck, and you put me up in the face of God. So what do I do, he said. I said, well, you've got to be saved, brother. You've got to be saved. So I explained the gospel to him.

And his wife didn't feel very comfortable in our church, so they started going to another church. And as far as I know, they're still going today. But I berate myself. I spent months. What if that man had died in those months where I never even introduced myself?

He'd go to hell. Or maybe he's still not saved. I'm not 100% sure. But he moved away. So I've lost track of him, actually.

But it's interesting, you see, even in practical things, how once the gospel came to him, his life began to change. I didn't even know. That's another embarrassing thing. I didn't even know for two or three months that he wasn't married to this woman. So another week passes by, and he comes to see me, sits down, and he says, you know, I've been thinking.

I've been thinking, if I'm really going to get serious about this God stuff and the Bible and things like that, he says, it's probably not right, is it, that I'm just living with Barbara? I said, well, yeah, you're right. He said, well, what must I do? I said, well, you either have to marry her or you have to move out. And I love her.

I said you either have to marry her or move out. I said I can't move out I don't know where to go. I said, well then you have to marry her. Well, he said, how soon do I have to marry her? Well, I said, very, very soon.

He said, how so? I said, well, I don't know. If you're not gonna move out, I said, I'd marry her this week if I were you. He said, you mean like this Friday? I said, yeah, this Friday.

So, he went back home and my wife and I are, Friday night we're listening, some music coming from somewhere. We walk outside and next door in the backyard is all these people dancing away and what's going on? Well, they just got married. You got to be kidding me. This guy listens to me a lot better than my own church people listen to me.

But you see we have to publicly witness for Christ. You never know, you never know. I mean I've talked to hundreds of people on the airplanes, literally hundreds, and I've got addresses, I've sent them books, most of them I never hear from again, but sometimes I do. One flight attendant I gave her, she asked me for sermon tapes. I sent her a box of 10.

She sent back a check at $50. She wanted 10 more. Who knows? Who can tell? Speak a good word for the Lord wherever you go and don't be surprised that people as you try to evangelize them that they'll try to evangelize you Because there's a lot of Christians out there.

They're just keeping their mouth closed, but they really are true Christians I was in the hospital and going up on an elevator floor one to seven takes a minute and a quarter and a lady stepped In I thought well, I've got a minute and a quarter to evangelize her. So I said, nice day today. She said, yeah. I said, well, it's a good thing we're not in charge of the weather. She said, you got that right.

Hmm. I said, good thing the Lord's in charge. Yes. I said, we don't deserve good weather, do we? She said, no.

She said, you got that right too. My mama always told me anything above ground is the mercy of the Lord. So, whoa, she's evangelizing me. She's saying anything but death and hell. We just deserve death and hell.

That's all we deserve. That's evangelism. That's opening the door. See, try to find ways to open the door with people. Say things that surprise them a little bit.

Be polite, Get close to them. But if you're a faithful church member, you see, your goal is you want to evangelize them and you hope to bring them in. Not just into your church, but into the kingdom. Then practically, mark Number 12, we must practice good stewardship. We must make our commitment to Christ's cause practically by the stewardship of giving to the church.

The church needs money. The church's ministries can't function without money. If you're in a faithful church, money is not abused. I like to look at it this way. The money the Lord gives me is like a temporary gift to me.

It's like play Monopoly money, which is useless once the game is over. Once my life is over, my money is useless. It's just a servant to help me a little bit now. We're not in ministry for money. Two days ago, a man said, just before I left for the plane, a man sat down with me and said, you're doing this conference for us.

How much should we pay you? I said, sir, never in my entire life have I answered that question. I'm not in this for money. If you give me nothing, it's fine. If you give me something, it's up to you, Completely up to you.

We're not in this for money. Yet the fact of the matter is, I run a seminary. I train 180 men for the ministry. We need 1.6 million dollars per year. We can't do without that.

So We need, we need the money. How do you get it? Well, if God's people are good stewards, you see, you seldom have to ask anybody because they supply it themselves. It comes, just comes. And what a blessing it is.

A few times I've had to actually go to people, but the last few years I haven't to go to anyone to ask for money. I had to make one phone call because God's people have been responding. That's wonderful you see. You see how that makes me feel. I don't like to get on the phone call people and say can you support the seminary?

I want to do other things with my time, more spiritual things. What a blessing when God's people spontaneously supply the church's needs. So, a wise faithful church member ties to his local church and doesn't allow other parachurch and other ministry giving to interrupt his flow of gifts to the local church. Now, final mark. Final mark is growing in Christ's image.

Growing in Christ's image. Christ maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love, Ephesians 4, 16 says. Christ maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. We grow to be more like Christ when we're faithful church members. Verse 13 says, the goal of this growth is unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

No one makes that in this life. No one arrives. You never get a diploma for being a Christian in this world. You never get a graduation degree. You're always in process.

I have not apprehended said Paul, but you strive after perfection. You strive after maturation. Now finally, what does that mean then? Mark 13, 14, 15. Personally, publicly, practically.

Personally, number 13, it means that we are personally humble. Humble. Paul says in Ephesians 4, one and two are therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called with lowliness and meekness. You see, this is the first quality of a worthy walk with Christ, humility. We were once spiritually dead, says Paul, but now we're alive and in that great love that has made us alive with the miraculous power of Christ's resurrection from the dead, we are made humble.

You know the famous story of someone who walked up to Augustine and said, what are the three qualities a Christian needs most? And he said, humility, humility, humility. God resists it to proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Now, part of that humility is that we also, within the body of the church, show submission one to another, and show submission to office bearers who are there to guide us and to show us the way. So long as those office bearers are teaching us biblically, we owe them submission just the way children owe it to their parents or a wife to her husband.

But if the church tries to lead us unbiblically, then we are to go to the church and try to correct the problem. My favorite story here is the story of a Puritan pastor who came to a brother. He saw he was really doting on his wife and loving his wife a lot. And he said, my friend, he said, I think you're committing idolatry. You love your wife too much.

And the Puritan was very upset. He said, I love my wife too much. I love God most of all. How can I love my wife too much? Well, the pastor said, I'm afraid you do.

You better examine yourself. So the man went home. And these were the days, of course, in the Puritans where people really went by the word of God. And so he searched the scriptures and he came to Ephesians 5. Christ so loved the church that he gave himself for her.

So ought ye to do. I don't love my wife too much. I can't love her as Christ loves the church. I come to show I don't love her enough. So he goes back to his pastor.

He says, look pastor, look here. See what the Bible says? Christ loved the church so much he gave himself for. I don't love my wife too much. I don't love her enough.

The pastor looked at her and said, Hmm you're right Go home and love your wife. You see, but normally you show submission. You see, even if you would think, well, maybe the office bureau should better do something the other way. You show submission. Just like you children.

Sometimes you think, well, maybe my father and mother, maybe it'd be better if they do it that way. Or why do they do this? But you show submission, don't you? At least you're called to. Submission in your heart, not just in your actions, not just yes, sir, but yes, sir, inside.

I have a member of my church he told me that his daughter was standing up in the car instead of sitting down putting their seatbelt on and he gave he was very firm to her he said you must sit down you must put your seat belt right now and she sat down and she put her seat belt on she said daddy I want you to know I'm sitting down but in my heart I'm standing up. She was rebellious. That's not a faithful church member. Number 14, we faithfully, this is the public dimension, we faithfully attend prayer meetings. Now, this is a strong point with me.

So if I go over the top here, forgive me. But I believe firmly in prayer meetings. I spent the better part of a summer in my life studying the history of prayer meetings and I discovered to my amazement and to my chagrin in a certain way, that prayer meetings are what God has used most of all to bring about revival in church history. When someone came to Charles Spurgeon and said, ''What is the success of this church? A fellow minister.

What are you doing, Mr. Spurgeon?'' Spurgeon said, ''Me? It really has very little to do with me. You want to know the reason why this church is growing so well qualitatively, quantitatively? Come, follow me, I'll show you.

He went to the sanctuary, he opened the door, and there were all these people on their knees praying to God. He said, that's the reason, the prayer meeting. When you don't go to the prayer meeting of the church, what does that say to your children? When you can't spend one hour a week coming before God in public prayer, what does that say to your children? A faithful church member desires to pray together.

They continued stud festally, Acts 1 14 and the apostles doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers. They were waiting for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit praying together. And number 15 we engage in meditation. Practically, practically we engage in meditation. This is something we've also forgotten today.

You can't grow into Christ's image without contemplating the Word of God. And so often today, we do this. We read the Bible, and then we pray. But we don't meditate. The Puritans said, meditation is the halfway house between scripture reading and prayer.

You ought to read the Bible, then meditate on it. That will give you fodder for prayer. But we've lost the art of meditation. I wish I had time to talk to you about that, but my time is almost up. So let me just advise you, if you want to learn more about that, just go out and buy the book, Puritan Reform Spirituality, Chapter 2, the Puritan Art of Meditation.

That will teach you how to meditate on the Word of God. So let me close by this and say, be a faithful member to the Church of Jesus Christ. Be faithful to Christ and his body in all five of these marks receive Christ's word, be united with Christ's person, and be connected to people and serve others for Christ's sake and grow in Christ's image. Remember, if you abuse Christ's body, you abuse Christ. If you neglect Christ's body, you neglect Christ himself.

In as much as you've done it to the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me. Strive to be a faithful member of the body of Christ. Let's pray together. Great God of heaven, bless this address and help us to examine ourselves by these 15 marks of faithful church membership. And Lord, when we are failing in several of them, we pray for the kind of self-examination and discipline and reorientation and correction that we need by the internal working of Thy Spirit to correct these problems and to be faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ.

We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Videos on the subject of conforming the Church and the family to the Word of God. For more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website ncfic.org.