In his sermon 'Elements of Church Membership,' Scott Brown explores the vibrant life of the early church as depicted in Acts 2, emphasizing repentance, baptism, fellowship, and unity among believers. He contrasts this with the modern-day independent Christian who often prioritizes individualism over community. Brown discusses the biblical principles and practices for church membership, highlighting the necessity of loving relationships, unity, and submission to church leadership. The sermon underscores the importance of involvement in a local church, with elders and deacons playing key roles in its governance. Church membership is seen as a divinely ordained institution that requires commitment and participation from its members. Brown also addresses the assets and liabilities of church membership, advocating for a focus on God-centered families and a biblical understanding of church life. The sermon concludes with a call to love and unity within the church, reflecting the love of the Trinity and fulfilling the call of Jesus Christ.

Acts chapter 2 verse 37 and we'll read all about gladness and sincerity of heart. Acts 2, 37. Acts 2.37. Now when they had heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? Peter said to them, Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself." And with many other words, he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, "'Be saved from this perverse generation.'" So when those who had received the word were baptized, and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the Apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer, everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common. And they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with them all as anyone might have need. Day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. You can see from this reading how exciting the life was in that early church right after the day of Pentecost. And I trust that this instruction this morning on the subject of church membership would somehow work in some way to assist us to produce the kind of life that's pictured here in this text, and that our lives together would be pleasing before God and among all of His people. The outline of this teaching this morning on church membership will take us to five points. First of all, I want us to notice the vibrant life of the early church members.

Secondly, I want to draw a contrast and help us to notice the day of the independent, unconnected Christian. And thirdly, I'd like to talk about church life as God planned for the members of the church to experience it. And then fourthly, I'd like to think about, have us think about the assets and liabilities that we possess in creating a church because our membership in the church makes a difference. It affects the church. And then number five, I'd like to cast some biblical principles and practices for church membership.

And then sixthly, I'd like to outline the criteria that we've set forth for church membership at Hope Baptist Church. So that's what the morning looks like. Well the first thing I would like for us to do is notice the vibrant life of the early church. And since this teaching is about church membership, I trust that God would, through His Word, as we acquire understanding of it, that He would form this kind of life in us. But the New Testament, and particularly this passage in Acts 2, it pictures a vibrant church life that was experienced by the members.

And it's clear from everywhere in Scripture that even though there were problems in every church, even though there were issues that were difficult to deal with and there was sin in every single church and even massive problems in every church that we see in the New Testament. This church had a delightful and a vibrant energy about it that was characterized by its repentance, by signs and wonders, by their taking care of one another, by their unity, their taking meals from house to house. And some of the most wonderful qualities of life are pictured there, the gladness, the sincerity of heart, the praising God. You know, it was a life that was magnetic, it was beautiful, and the Lord was adding to their number day by day. And this is the kind of church life that we should all just, first of all, desire, but pray toward and live toward.

And so we see them united by Christ's love for one another. And then they become witnesses they're formed into a spiritual family where where spiritual blood is thicker than biological blood And even though they were and we are all scoundrels, sinners before God, we all have two things in common, and that is our common sinfulness and our need for the grace of God in every single area of our lives. This should humble us, make us a, should make us a compliant, gracious people. And secondly, we have in common our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I would just say that involvement in the church is not an option for the Christian, but it's a divinely ordained institution that we must participate in.

Now I just want to have a pause for a second here because Vody Bakum is calling in here and he probably doesn't know what time it is here. I just missed the call. David, is David Brown here? Would you call Vody back? Just take a message.

He's flying up here from Houston. We're going to meet in JFK. Here you go. There you go. Boy.

This is going to be a little... You can edit tapes of worship services, but you can't edit worship services. So there's this commonality of nature, sinful nature, commonality of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ as the center of everything in the church and the importance of involvement in the church which is a bride, a body, a building. It upholds the truth and it's full of dynamic work, of being witnesses, of being baptizers in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So the church, the church always and every generation will need reformation back to these practices.

And I believe that in the context that we live in here in 21st century American Christianity, there's a need of Reformation in the minds and the hearts of church members, of what true church membership is all about. I want to draw a contrast to make this point. I want us to notice the day of the independent and unconnected Christian. We live in a day of the unconnected, independent Christian. And he's often more connected with a popular media communicator than he is with the God-ordained ministry in his local area, which he had the capability of ministering to him in a deep way.

If he's kind of a deep thinker kind of a guy, then he prefers theological positions over relationships in the church. If he's a shallow thinker, then he prefers form and outward appearance and relevance and coolness or getting his needs met or something, some next new hip thing in the church that will take him where he always wanted to go or if he's a regular kind of guy, He considers his favorite speaker to be his pastor, even though that guy is 2, 000 miles away. But this is not to say that there's anything wrong at all with the vast resources of teaching and preaching that we have available to us today. I am very thankful for it. I mean, every man in the church today, every woman, every child, has access to a theological education instantly with this global communication resource that we have.

I'm grateful for the sermons for the pastors outside who are better than we are, who are smarter, ahead spiritually. They can be so helpful to all of us. I don't want to cast dispersion on that at all. I use them as resources. I'm delighted that God has given them.

But there's nothing that can replace the local church and the local relationships in a church. But the prevailing mentality seems to be at work in the church goes like this, that there's just an absence of the admonitions to intimacy of relationships, the true responsibility of church members to one another, and particularly to their leaders. There's just almost a total blank spot in the American church in all those areas that I just mentioned. And so the church has kind of adopted a lifestyle that's more like good old American John Wayne rugged individualism. And commitment is a rarity in our churches.

True devotion to one another is. And so I ran across a great statement that gives a little bit of insight into this problem. Ben Domenick says this, the perfect church for many modern Americans is one where they are the sole member. There are no babies screaming, no poorly delivered sermons, no tithing. It all seems delightfully convenient.

You can have your coffee, read the paper, and you won't miss the kickoff. And there's just this independent individualism, disconnectedness that's part of the spirit of the American church and scripture certainly would lead us in a different direction. So let's talk a little bit about church the way God planned it. In today's environment, people often live their whole lives without three really major things that a true church provides its members to enter into. And the first thing, I'm just going to call it loving relationships.

The the injunctions to love one another in the church are just all over scripture. Love is, the love of God is the theme of the Bible and it is his love that moves from the Holy Trinity to the believer. The believer then duplicates that love in the life of the church. That's the logic of scripture and there is redemption in the love of God. And so we have all these commands to love one another, to be devoted to one another and brotherly love, to give preference to one another in honor, to be of the same mind toward one another, not to judge one another, but to pursue the things which make for the building up of one another, to accept one another, admonish one another, to greet one another, to serve one another, do not challenge one another, do not envy one another, show forbearance for one another, be kind to one another, forgive one another, Speak to one another with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Be subject to one another. Regard one another is more important than yourself. Do not lie to one another. Bear with one another. Teach one another.

Comfort one another. Encourage one another. Build one another up. Well this is, I'm just reading from the fifty-some one another statements that are in the New Testament that define this loving relationship that God has for us. We're told that without love, we are nothing.

That should tell us something about what life in the church ought to be about. But there are hordes of people who are in churches today, right now, and they will have no loving relationships in that church. They'll come, they'll hear the speaker, they'll go to their Sunday school class, they'll hit the road and they'll come back next week and they will be deprived of this element of love in the church, how much we need it and God desires it for us. So the first thing they often live without is love and I just hope that the words that I've just read out of scripture regarding the one another would help us to form a culture of loving kindness in this church that we would do what the apostle Paul called us to do, to love one another from the heart, that it would be genuine, sincere love. And you know, it's something we should pray for.

We should pray for ourselves, in our homes, we should pray that God would give us love for one another in the church. Because there's always something attacking love, everywhere. It doesn't really matter what relationship it is. If there's some possibility for love in it, it will be attacked by the forces of darkness. We should just expect it.

But as church members, I would just like to cast the vision that love among the brethren is a huge, huge priority among us. If anyone would desire to become a church member, let them commit themselves to the genuine personal love of particular brethren. Personal love of particular brethren. Also, people can live their whole lives without sharing together in unity and partnership of life. It's interesting to read the letters to the New Testament churches and in all of them is this idea of unity and sharing in partnership with one another.

Many of the statements that the Apostle Paul brings to the churches would cause them to have this kind of experience in the church. You know, like for instance, when Paul wrote to the Philippians, he called them saints and he called himself a servant, a slave. And the New Testament, the New Testament levels the ground in the church and it makes everybody a saint. And it makes, God makes us all ministers and saints, fellow heirs of the grace. He makes us the adopted brethren of our elder brother, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are all on the same plane genealogically before God. So there's no elevation of one over another except regarding the explicit teachings on church government where there is structure, there is authority in the church, but that authority does not supersede the personal relationship that is described by what someone, the term that someone used to explain it by, that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. And so we're called to be sharing together in unity, there's no upmanship, there's no one that's superior. It's kind of like a marriage. You know, a husband is not superior to his wife intellectually or spiritually, at least particularly, but he is in authority.

He is the head of the household. Both can survive. What's important in the church is to make sure that the head, the heads of the church or the elders of the church, the ones who have been given the keys to church government, that those are not elevated in any way other than this area of authority. But this sharing together in unity in the church is often not experienced. And You get to the end of the book of Romans and Paul is just mentioning one person after another.

It's just an expression of the unity and the collaboration, the partnership they had together in the church. A third thing that people often live without is they often live without ever trustfully submitting to the care of elders or committing to the structure of that church. The church is just sort of something that they play tag with every once in a while. They don't enter in. They see themselves as somewhat disconnected with the life of that church and their leaders.

When you have people in the church who are disconnected with the life of their leaders, then it's hard to really have much of a church, honestly. God has ordered the church with officers and some kind of structure. The Bible just makes it plain what that ought to look like. Hebrews 13-17 says obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief for this would be unprofitable for you." That is just clear teaching that there's a structural relationship that involves submission to the leadership of that church.

And of course today we're going to talk about many of the patterns and the principles and examples from scripture that underline this connectedness with one another, how it works with the government that God has provided the church. But one of these connectednesses is the relationship with particular leaders in the church. I would just like to submit that if a believer doesn't have particular leaders in a local church that that believer is connected with, they're not really participating in the real church of Jesus Christ. They're participating in their own version of the church that they've created in their own mind that they like a lot better. But the biblical version is a version where there are leaders and there are people connected with those leaders.

As long as those leaders follow the Lord, the connectedness should sustain. If they're wicked leaders, then they need to be confronted in the way that the Bible describes and may be unseated. It's interesting that in the New Testament, any individual believer can call into question on biblical grounds, the behavior of a leader. The ground is level right there. And so at the same time, we live in an environment where people do not live trustfully, submitting to the care of elders.

Now, I'd like us to just think for a minute about the assets and liabilities of church membership. Now, whenever human beings gather together, here's what happens. They create a culture. They key off of one another. They become like one another.

You know, you who have been married for a while know that you're just becoming more and more like one another. In a godly marriage, there are fewer and fewer edges over time. Because you sort of morph, you can finish one another's sentences and things like that and you kind of know what one another's thinking about certain things. This happened to me just last night. Deborah was saying something to me and I started, I had a certain look on my face.

And she said, well, why don't you just tell me what I'm thinking? And I said, no, no, I'm not. No, you keep on. Tell me what you're thinking. But that happens in relationships.

We become like one another. But God has called us together to create a certain kind of life. And so that means it matters who we are. It matters what Our priorities are because we're going to affect the whole. This is why it's so important that each household must fix themselves upon being a godly household seven days a week so that they do not unrighteously contaminate the church when they come together in the meeting of the local church.

We do need God-centered families so that when they come into the church they're God-centered people who can lead the church to the kind of God-centeredness that it needs. So it matters what kind of people we are individually because who we are individually will create the kind of life that we'll have together. So we dare not take our influence lightly and we dare not sit on the periphery of church life. Next I'd like to just talk about some of the biblical principles and practices for church membership. And the first that I'd like to identify is that salvation and baptism initiates membership in the body of Christ while communion illustrates its continuance.

And so the question is how do you become a member of the church? Well, you become a member of the church through salvation. By faith alone, you are baptized, and you enter into the church, and you follow the Lord in communion and you participate in the Lord's Supper. These are just the signs of regeneration. 1 Corinthians 12 through 31 speaks of this miracle that takes place at regeneration that we become part of a body.

So Paul says, for even as the body is one and yet has many members and all the members of the body though they are many are one body so also is Christ For by one Spirit we were baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, we were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, because I'm not a hand, I'm not a part of the body, it is not for this reason any less a part of the body. And if The ear says, because I'm not an eye, I'm not a part of the body. It is not for this reason any less a part of the body.

And this passage of scripture brilliantly speaks of what happens at regeneration. We become part of a body where each member is different and each member is necessary. Salvation is the entry point, but we become members of one another. Remember, we're talking about church membership. The illustration that the apostle Paul gives to illustrate what it means to be a member of the body is to illustrate it by the member of your body, your physical body.

How much more graphic can it get? You want to learn about What's the significance of church membership? It's highly significant. And so you would not want to cut off your hand. You need your hand.

And it illustrates the importance of church membership. And Paul brings it down to a very striking illustration of the human body. Well secondly, the early church presents local churches with lists and accountabilities and that should teach us something about church membership. Not only does Paul use the human body and the necessity of all the parts working together to illustrate church membership. But he also gives us insight into it by the different ways that the church is described.

For instance, there were lists of widows in 1 Timothy 5. In Philippians 4 and Revelation 21, there's a book of life with a list of believers. There are lists of believers that are kept in heaven. In Ephesians chapter 4, we are a body with specific parts and we're charged to preserve the unity of the Spirit. In Hebrews 13, in the passage that I read earlier, there are specific shepherds that have specific responsibilities over the souls of specific believers.

That means that church leaders aren't responsible for every soul of every believer in the whole world. That doesn't make any sense at all, but who are they responsible for? Well, they're responsible to those who are part of their local church. The Bible presents the church in its global and its local form. But there are lists and accountabilities that are spoken of in Scripture.

1st Corinthians 5 verse 2 and verse 7 speak of some people who are in and some who are considered out of the church as a result of their sin. There are people that are put out of the church taken off the list regarded as unbelievers not included in the fellowship of the saints. So the early church presents local churches with lists and accountabilities that are particular to local personalities and local geographical bodies. And so this just helps us to think biblically about church membership and particularly our own relationship with the church. Number three, biblical church government demands a certain kind of membership.

You know, there's some who say that there's no discernible structure in the New Testament regarding church life and membership. We just don't believe this at all, that there is a discernible structure of church life, that there are patterns, there are commands, there are things that must be upheld that are part of the Apostles' teaching. They are normative and they must be preserved from one generation to the next. That's what we believe at Hope Baptist Church. You know the Bible presents churches that who are led by a plurality of elders.

They teach specific things to specific congregations. They have accountability to specific souls in accountability to specific souls in that church. And here are some Acts chapter 20. The Apostle Paul speaks of shepherding the flock among you. That means that there's a kind of membership.

There are people who are among you. So there's a kind of membership that's alluded to in 1st Peter 5 verses 2 & 3. Shepherd the flock among you exercising oversight not under compulsion but voluntarily according to the will of God and not for sordid gain but with eagerness, nor yet as lording it over, those allotted to your charge." There are people actually allotted to your charge, and he's saying here it's inappropriate for a leader to lord it over, those allotted to his charge, but to be an example to the flock, and when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive that unfading crown of glory." There's a kind of membership alluded to here, and he uses the terminology allotted to your charge. If you go to 1st Thessalonians chapter 5, the apostle writes, therefore encourage one another, build one another, encourage one other, and build up one another just as you are also doing. But we request of you brethren that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you notice this language there's people are laboring where not two thousand miles away it's it's among you you're part of a family you're part of a body There's a kind of membership that is expressed in this term among you and they have charge over you in verse 12 and in the Lord and they give you instruction at the end of verse 12.

And he says, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work, live in peace with one another. So there's all this language that just drives us together. You know, church in the drive-in theater just is not the biblical church. We gather together as people. Church membership is not some internet membership where you just sign up on the website and you're now part of the distribution list.

That's not how church membership works in the Church of Jesus Christ. Go to 1 Timothy 5.17. The elders who rule well are considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle the ox while he's threshing, and the labor is worthy of his wages. Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses.

So it just assumes knowledgeable life. It assumes that I know the elder. And it assumes that I know another guy who might have a problem with that elder. There's a kind of membership here and there are these accountabilities that are critical that they be maintained. And then If there's a sin, if an elder has a sin, verse 20 says, if they continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest may be fearful of sinning.

So there's this, the presence of all. Is that the global body of Christ through an internet posting? No, no it's a personal, this is all very personal and there's a kind of membership that that Scripture speaks of. We spoke of Hebrews 13, 17. Another point, you know church discipline is meaningless without a form of membership.

For church discipline to even be carried out, There has to be a local set of accountable members of the church, and they're responsible for one another. And they also, they do hard things. You know, they do uncomfortable things. And Church discipline is meaningless without some form of membership. Number five, the one and others demand a connection with a specific group of people.

Number six, The concept of a holy people set apart assumes an understanding that there are boundaries to church membership. There is the holy people of God, the holy nation, and then there are the Gentiles. There is this wicked generation, you're saved out of it, and you become part of the people of God. Salvation, one aspect of salvation is that you change your identity, you cease identifying with the world, and you begin to identify with God's people and you do that through baptism and that picture of baptism is a visual explanation of the gospel that you died and you left the old life and you were raised up again to eternal life. But this whole concept of a holy people set apart assumes an understanding that there are boundaries to church membership.

2 Corinthians 6, 17, Paul says, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch no unclean thing. This just means that there's a different life lived in the church and outside the church. And then he says, and I will receive you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Almighty. There are a number of passages of scripture that we could go to. We could go to Hebrews 11 verses 24 and 25.

We could go to Hebrews 10 verses 24 and 25. But The basic idea is that there's a certain kind of membership that's implied in all the teaching regarding in the New Testament. There's no verse that says, thou shall become a member, sign a membership covenant, get on the church rolls, and go through the membership class. There's nothing like that in Scripture. So I think we should just understand that.

But there is a kind of membership that carries all these characteristics that I've just described. And so what we attempt to do at Hope Baptist is try to, when we bring members in, to try to explain as much as we can about New Testament church life, the roles and responsibilities of leaders and members of the church as Scripture describes it. I would never ever say I do not believe that each step of the membership process that we're going to have at this church is an explicitly biblical process because I'm just not familiar with anywhere in scripture where there is a church covenant that people signed. But you know what, we're going to ask the people who become members of this church to sign a membership covenant. And somebody said, well that's not biblical.

Well, everything on it's biblical and it's really a teaching tool. And obviously people are going to have different levels of understanding of all the teaching that we bring, but we at least want to cast a vision so that everybody really understands what we're talking about. And we think that will help the unity of the church. We think it'll help the love of the church. We think it'll help the effectiveness of the church.

And we also think it will contribute to the gladness and the sincerity of heart that the scriptures teach about. So let me give you some of the points regarding the criteria for church membership at Hope Baptist. Well, the first point is this. Membership in the body of Christ comes through regeneration, baptism, and it's qualified and it's a qualification for communion. So If someone wants to become a member of Hope Baptist Church, they must be a true member of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ through the saving faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, accomplished by His blood shed on the cross, by faith alone, no works required for salvation, and that they've been baptized according to the patterns of Scripture, and that they are qualified to take communion.

Those kind of people we would accept into the membership of Hope Baptist Church. Secondly, membership includes an understanding the purpose of the church and we've outlined the purpose of the church and a number of the critical items that we at least want everybody to understand in our Constitution and in our church covenant and in our doctrinal statement. In those three documents you'll be able to find the range of what we believe. And if someone desires to be a member of the church, they need to have pretty broad agreement, not perfect agreement on every single point. These are just human documents.

But there must be substantial agreement on the purpose of the church. And then thirdly, Membership includes understanding and subscribing to Hope Baptist's statement of faith. And I'll just try to state this very quickly. We believe that the 66 books of the Bible are the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God, and they are the only rule for faith and practice. We believe there is only one God, that God is revealed to us in the Scriptures, that He is holy, He exists in three persons, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We believe that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father before the worlds were made, that He is God fully, He is man fully, that He came, He died, He rose from the grave, and His blood is the only sanctifying influence for sin. And we believe that we are saved by grace alone and by not by any merit by any character quality by any personal improvement but we are only made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ and there's no act that you can perform to add to your salvation by faith, and that those who are justified will live eternally in the presence of God, and those who are not will spend an eternity in hell. That's a really quick summary of what we believe regarding scripture and salvation. A doctrinal statement that we want everyone to be familiar with is the Second London Baptist Confession. This is a marvelous theological work.

If you understand the points of this confession you will understand Bible doctrine. That's one of the great importances of it. It's a human document, it's not a perfect document, it's not the Bible, but it explains in summary form the teachings of the Bible. If someone knows well the Second London Baptist Confession, they will understand Christian belief and theology. So if someone wants to become a member, we want them to read it carefully, look up the verses and have labored over it and say, yes, this is what I believe.

And if there are any variations, we can just discuss those because there, you know, it's legitimate that there could be some variations, but we would just want to discuss them and make sure that those that we bring into membership have carefully examined at least what we believe as elders of the church. Membership includes understanding and maintaining Hope Baptist high priority principles and practices and what we desire is a church that has some of these characteristics. First of all, the centrality of the gospel. That all of the activities, all of our services, all of our conversations, all of our breaking bread from house to house, that it would be the gospel that would be the center of all of our fellowship and our communication with one another. And that this would be the heartbeat of all of what we do and say in the church.

That our marriages are governed by the gospel. That our relationships with men and women in the church are governed by the gospel and those outside the church and those outside in the unbelieving world. We're dedicated to expository preaching. We believe a steady diet of expositional preaching is the most effective way to build up the body of Christ. And so our pattern will be just teaching and preaching through the books of the Bible.

That's what we'll do. We're just going to do this for a long time. And we're highly committed to it. Fervent prayer, that we bathe all of the aspects of our lives together in prayer. Authentic worship, that our worship is marked by truth in the words that we say to God, that the content is sound theologically.

There are a lot of airheaded, wrong-headed, actually wrong ideas in a number of the songs that are in the church today. We just desire to be careful with that. And that our worship is genuine and that it is from the heart and elements of worship include prayer and praise, scripture reading, exposition, music and all that kind of thing. Also that we're marked by loving community, that we demonstrate love to one another. Next that we exercise church discipline, properly administered in a spirit of obedience and in a spirit of humility, looking for reconciliation as the end of any church discipline that we do, personal evangelism, that we have hearts so full of the gospel that we can't keep our mouths shut, that our lives together, our worship together is so rich toward God that we just could not contain ourselves, and that we would be involved in church planting, and also that we would understand the spirit of the regulative principle of worship.

And here's what the regulative principle of worship says. Our lives together and our worship is to be in general accordance with the spirit of the regulative principle, meaning that everything we do must be clearly grounded and explicitly seen in Scripture. And this can take the form of commands of Scripture or necessary implications of particular passages of Scripture. It's just another way of saying that Christ has authority over the church, that His word should govern the way we worship and the things that we do in the church. We should be satisfied and trustful toward Him in it.

And it assumes the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, which states that Scripture was all we need for life and godliness, and that we should be very focused on the words of Scripture to create the lives that He's given us here on this earth, and particularly in the worship of the church. So those are some of the main high priority principles and practices that we desire to be fulfilling at Hope Baptist Church. Now, the fifth item is that membership includes support of the government of Hope Baptist Church. Elders are called to shepherd God's flock and they must meet qualifications outlined in Scripture. They are to be equal in ruling status, in authority, in title.

They may have different roles in the local body, but if you're an elder in this church, you have to subscribe to the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689. And an elder in his family must practice holiness and purity and must have his household in order as scripture indicates. Not only will there be elders as officers of the church, there will be deacons, and the deacons duties include ministering to those in the congregation who are needy or sick or friendless or any who are in distress especially widows and orphans, devising effective methods for collecting gifts of the people, and then distributing those gifts for the purpose that they were contributed, supporting the elders in their ministry, and then setting an example to the flock in matters of spirituality and dedication in the same way that the deacons in the early church were. They were spiritual giants like Stephen. We know that many of the deacons of The church in Jerusalem were martyred not many years after the day of Pentecost.

These were godly faithful men who served the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were not the church janitors, by the way. The Bible does not have deacons as janitors. That's not the deal. And so deacons had specific roles that are outlined here.

And then sixthly, membership includes acknowledgments of Hope Bapsus' application of the spirit of the regulator principle that we've spoken of before. Let me quote myself. I wrote this. I forgot about that. I thought I was quoting someone else.

Throughout the centuries, the primary activities of the church have been the reading of Scripture, singing together, preaching the Word, evangelizing and observing the ordinances of Baptism and Communion. Each of these is verified by commands, principles, and patterns of Scripture as follows. You just see biblical testimony that these are the normal duties of the people of God when they come together. So We're just going to do these. We're just going to take them at face value that they're what we need and we'll carry them out.

We believe that you see at the bottom age integrated discipleship. We believe that there is no other pattern in scripture that's discernible other than age-graded discipleship. There are commands all over scripture. You know, the people of God are commanded to bring their children to the feast of weeks, to the feast of tabernacles, bring their children into the celebration of the Passover, bring the children into all manner of Old Testament meetings, even the suckling babes. In the New Testament you find it's an age integrated environment.

There are children obviously in the meetings of the churches because the Apostle Paul is addressing them directly. The meeting of the church in the New Testament was a lot more like this than it is with a bunch of adults sitting in a room while the children are off in their Sunday school classes. There's just no pattern, there's no evidence of that kind of church life at all anywhere in scripture. So that's why we have that on there. We just think it's an implicit pattern of scripture.

Here's a great statement by Jim Elliot, the missionary martyr, that I think it really helps us understand what this regulative principle is all about. The pivot point hangs on whether or not God has revealed a universal pattern for the church in the New Testament. If he has not, then anything will do, so long as it works. But I am convinced that nothing so dear to the heart of Christ as his bride should be left without explicit instructions as to her corporate conduct. I am further convinced that the 20th century has in no way simulated this pattern in its method of churching a community.

It is incumbent upon me if God has a pattern for the church to find and establish that pattern at all costs. And that's, I think, is a clearer way to state what we mean by the regulative principle. Now I don't personally believe that this regulative principle can be applied absolutely perfectly because we're part of culture there's so many things that we do that are not found in the Bible. How about this microphone? How about this music stand and this computer?

There are just so many things that we do that are not found in the Bible. How about this microphone? How about this music stand and this computer? There are just so many things that we do that are not in Scripture, but it's to us to seek with all of our hearts to be as faithful to the biblical testimony as we possibly can. Here's some more patterns of the early church, weekly meetings, evangelism, breaking bread from house to house, generosity, meetings in homes, highly interactive and participatory meetings, elder-led, consensus-oriented church government characterized by joy and sincerity.

So if someone wants to become a member of the church we just want them to understand the founding elders of this church have these perspectives regarding how church life should operate. And so we would ask any church members to, if they desire to be a member and really co-labor with us, to understand and have some, have significant level of agreement on these principles. And then, number seven, membership includes subscribing to three main membership documents. There's the statement of faith, which is a theological treatise on all the issues of the Christian faith. Secondly, our church constitution, and Jason has brought copies of that constitution for your families.

And then the church covenant, And we've passed out a copy of the Church Covenant at the beginning of the meeting. So all of these things we desire would lead us into love, into faithfulness to the Lord. You know, the Bible is absolutely a book of the love of God being transmitted into the hearts of sinners and then spreading out to other sinners. And it begins in the Trinity, in the Godhead is formed the example of love, and then we are grafted into that unity and then we express the same Oneness of love and unity in the church and he has called us to love and that is the essence of Church membership if there's church membership without love it's nothing Sign on the dotted line as much as you want. It will mean nothing if there's no love.

It seems like lovelessness nullifies everything. You can believe everything, you can do everything, you can fulfill all the points of the law, but if you have not love, it's nothing. Isn't that amazing? I'm so amazed at Jesus' prayer in John 17 that speaks of just how wonderful and important this is for all disciples of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus said, I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me the glory which you have given me I have given to them that they may be one just as we are one I and them and you and me that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as I have loved you." Do you see this beautiful grafting in?

There's the love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit we are brought into that love and Then we are sent out to give that to create that same kind of love in the church of Jesus Christ this is our calling in life is to create love in the church of Jesus Christ. And it's so clear in this beautiful prayer. So we desire to fulfill the call of the Lord Jesus Christ to be part of building up the body of Christ in love. And that our membership in the body would have this effect, that we would love one another from the heart. And out of that love would spring forth love for sinners and that we would bring them in to that same kind of love.

Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, your calling is so high it is higher than what we can attain. But yet we desire it, we desire heaven, we desire a city not made with hands. Until then Lord, help us to Be servants of yours in building the city of God. In Jesus name, Amen.