back to indexBerean Community Church Bible Study Session 2 - Covenant 1 - Why Membership?
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and then we'll start off with a word of prayer. 00:01:38.280 |
God, we are, again, so grateful that you're merciful to us, 00:01:44.880 |
We ask, Lord God, as each day has its own worries, 00:01:54.320 |
And we pray, Lord, one of the great struggles is 00:01:57.040 |
sometimes we're fatigued and our desires may wane, 00:02:00.240 |
but help us, Lord God, to have such a desire, 00:02:15.680 |
we do pray that it would be pleasing to your ear. 00:08:34.280 |
♪ And what could separate us from this amazing love? ♪ 00:08:41.600 |
♪ What could say it's greater than our God? ♪ 00:08:56.360 |
♪ Oh, what could separate us from this amazing love? ♪ 00:09:01.360 |
♪ What could say it's greater than our God? ♪ 00:10:19.660 |
Father, we just thank You for this time of worship 00:10:24.220 |
We just lift Your praise to You and You alone 00:10:28.220 |
and You are holy, holy, holy, just like we sang. 00:10:31.660 |
And God, as we just sing about one church, one faith, 00:10:35.900 |
one name that saves, God, which is Christ Jesus, 00:10:47.220 |
and that we would just truly grow in just Christ being King 00:11:09.860 |
so here's a volunteer opportunity for you guys. 00:11:12.580 |
In order to have this set up, we do need helping hands 00:11:17.780 |
We have facility preparers who are setting up tables 00:11:24.260 |
If you can, please sign up, the link is here, 00:11:31.820 |
you should have gotten a link for a schedule. 00:11:41.900 |
and there's also opportunities to help clean up 00:11:45.540 |
So we're requesting that you guys look at your schedules, 00:11:51.340 |
or just stay behind a little bit after to help clean, okay? 00:11:56.700 |
so please make sure you sign up for that, okay? 00:55:29.260 |
- We can begin to wrap up and get back into the room 00:59:43.420 |
It's at eight o'clock, a little bit over eight. 00:59:47.420 |
All right, let me pray for us and we'll get started. 00:59:53.420 |
and as we take this time to discuss the First Covenant 01:00:01.420 |
we pray, Father God, for a deeper understanding 01:00:06.420 |
We pray that you would sanctify us and teach us 01:00:12.420 |
that we build this church for the sake of your name. 01:00:52.420 |
we're gonna start taking sign-ups this Sunday, 01:00:55.420 |
where we go over the various aspects of the church, 01:01:06.420 |
and this covenant is basically what we are expecting 01:01:21.420 |
that we're not simply adding numbers to the church, 01:01:33.420 |
but we want to build the church very intentionally, 01:01:35.420 |
so the Tenfold Covenant that we're gonna go over 01:01:42.420 |
are all commitments that we're asking every member 01:01:51.420 |
but to sign it with intention of practicing it, 01:01:58.420 |
So the first covenant is I confess Jesus Christ 01:02:03.420 |
so the first covenant is that the members of the church 01:02:14.420 |
but that there's evidence of this in your life, 01:02:21.420 |
it's gonna be about why we practice membership, okay? 01:02:32.420 |
and membership is kind of a new concept to you, right? 01:02:35.420 |
It sounds weird to have a church be exclusive, 01:02:38.420 |
so you may have come from a paradigm thinking 01:02:55.420 |
why we feel the need to practice membership, okay? 01:03:00.420 |
First of all, the word for church itself in Greek 01:03:05.420 |
is ekklesia, ekklesia, and it's the two words. 01:03:13.420 |
and so the literal understanding of the meaning 01:03:15.420 |
is an assembly of people who have been called out, right? 01:03:22.420 |
and so when Jesus uses this word to describe the church, 01:03:29.420 |
It's not just wherever people gather together, right? 01:03:37.420 |
I just make wherever two or three gather together, 01:03:51.420 |
Christianity is just your personal relationship with God. 01:03:58.420 |
It is not just your personal relationship with God. 01:04:16.420 |
There are very specific things about what the Bible says, 01:04:20.420 |
So again, just the meaning itself of the church, 01:04:43.420 |
and these are people who are gathering together, right? 01:04:48.420 |
They gather together for a particular purpose, 01:05:06.420 |
"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, 01:05:10.420 |
"a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, 01:05:14.420 |
"so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him 01:05:17.420 |
"who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 01:05:29.420 |
God had called us out, made us a chosen race, 01:05:33.420 |
a royal priesthood, a nation that belongs to God 01:05:45.420 |
before you met Christ, into the light, right? 01:06:15.420 |
a single activity that will affect your walk with God 01:06:27.420 |
I'm just telling you from my personal experience 01:06:29.420 |
and from years of just trying to disciple people. 01:06:32.420 |
If there's a single activity that you are not doing 01:06:40.420 |
that will radically change your spiritual life 01:06:54.420 |
and yet you're not spending personal time with God 01:07:02.420 |
there's no single activity that you will commit to 01:07:08.420 |
in your life than your personal devotion with God. 01:07:15.420 |
I would say make your personal time with God a priority. 01:07:21.420 |
If you say, you know what, all these verses are burdensome 01:07:23.420 |
or it's just too much, I have this, I have that activity, 01:07:26.420 |
I would say make this the highest of your priority. 01:07:33.420 |
the second most important thing that you will do in life 01:07:42.420 |
So if you're not doing that, you want to be disciple, 01:07:46.420 |
if you're not doing this, do this first, okay? 01:07:52.420 |
and then seek counsel, and then seek whatever it is 01:07:58.420 |
that you understand that this is that important, right? 01:08:01.420 |
Now, I understand that you may have other devotions 01:08:06.420 |
so you may not be able to devote as much time onto this, 01:08:17.420 |
and then possibly more than that going forward, right? 01:08:24.420 |
and if there's anything that you will do in life 01:08:26.420 |
that will single-handedly enhance your walk with God 01:08:32.420 |
That's completely just off-tangent, but all right. 01:08:49.420 |
"and gates of Hades will not prevail against it." 01:09:11.420 |
the church got together, or the group of people 01:09:13.420 |
who became Christians said, "Well, how are we going to 01:09:15.420 |
"organize the church? What are we going to do?" 01:09:19.420 |
He says, "No, this was introduced to us by Christ himself." 01:09:22.420 |
Number two, the church is a gathering of people 01:09:49.420 |
is really about non-Christians in the church? 01:10:21.420 |
and believe that Jesus is resurrected from the dead. 01:10:49.420 |
but Sunday worship is not designed for non-Christians, 01:10:55.420 |
and non-Christians do not come to worship, right? 01:11:02.420 |
So non-Christians can come, they can sit there, 01:11:04.420 |
they can ask questions, and we can evangelize to them, 01:11:07.420 |
but Sunday worship is worship for Christians, okay? 01:11:11.420 |
And so it's not that we don't care about them, 01:11:16.420 |
and then have the main target for the worship non-Christians. 01:11:30.420 |
where Jesus is encountering the Samaritan woman. 01:11:43.420 |
who will worship Him in spirit and in truth, right? 01:11:48.420 |
The reason why Jesus says spirit and in truth 01:12:01.420 |
And the Samaritans have a version of it of their own. 01:12:16.420 |
but what God is looking for are genuine worshipers 01:12:19.420 |
who will worship in spirit and in truth, right? 01:12:24.420 |
that He says He's looking for in the church, right? 01:12:33.420 |
All these things are important things that the Bible teaches. 01:12:36.420 |
But the primary thing that God is looking for, 01:12:38.420 |
how does God determine a good church versus a bad church? 01:12:47.420 |
How do you determine it's a good church or a bad church? 01:12:59.420 |
are the people in this church genuinely worshiping God 01:13:04.420 |
So obviously you're going to require the teaching. 01:13:09.420 |
But the primary thing that God will determine 01:13:11.420 |
that's a good church versus this church is not a good church 01:13:14.420 |
is genuine worship of spirit and truth happening, right? 01:13:20.420 |
What happens to a church that worships in spirit 01:13:36.420 |
You raise your hand and you sing and your praise is awesome. 01:13:44.420 |
What happens to a church that is worshiping in spirit 01:14:10.420 |
Okay, yeah, I'm looking for something more specific. 01:14:20.420 |
All these--the people who are flocking to cults 01:14:25.420 |
because the cults seem more passionate and sincere 01:14:31.420 |
They go to the--so many people who end up going to cults 01:14:39.420 |
"The people there, they're not really sincere. 01:14:50.420 |
And even though you go through the Scripture and say, 01:14:52.420 |
"Well, Scripturally, they're all--you know, this is wrong 01:14:58.420 |
"They're the most sincere people I've ever met. 01:15:03.420 |
But the problem with that is when they don't have truth, 01:15:10.420 |
What happens to a church that practices truth 01:15:30.420 |
He doesn't want us to come and check off the box and say, 01:15:32.420 |
"Oh, everybody with right doctrine come to heaven." 01:15:37.420 |
Even the demons believe that and they shudder. 01:15:45.420 |
He said what God is looking for are people who will worship him 01:15:50.420 |
So if you have truth and you don't have passion 01:15:53.420 |
and you don't have zeal for God, it's dead orthodoxy. 01:15:58.420 |
But if you have passion and you don't have the truth, 01:16:01.420 |
you're open to all kinds of heresy that may come in. 01:16:05.420 |
And you're not even able to discern if it is heresy or not 01:16:11.420 |
The church is a gathering of people for the purpose 01:16:15.420 |
The church is a gathering of God's people for the purpose 01:16:33.420 |
Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, 01:16:48.420 |
All of them for the purpose of equipping so that we may be 01:16:52.420 |
equipped for the building up of the body of Christ as each one 01:16:58.420 |
So ultimately so that we may come to the fullness of Christ. 01:17:02.420 |
And so the gathering of the church is for the purpose 01:17:09.420 |
And this is where the equipping is happening. 01:17:11.420 |
And so the purpose of why you're doing Bible study is not to 01:17:14.420 |
scratch your ears and say, "Oh, I know better now," right? 01:17:17.420 |
Because what happens to people who are constantly learning 01:17:25.420 |
So knowledge becomes a source to judge other people 01:17:36.420 |
how is this going to equip you to build up the body of Christ, 01:17:42.420 |
Five, the church is a gathering of God's people for the purpose 01:17:47.420 |
In Galatians 6, 1 and 2, it says bear each other's burden and 01:17:50.420 |
those who are more spiritual, right, to confront, 01:17:55.420 |
to care with gentleness that they turn from their sins. 01:17:59.420 |
Hebrews chapter, right, 10, 25, let us not forsake gathering 01:18:05.420 |
together as it is the habit of some but consider how to 01:18:09.420 |
stimulate one another on toward love and good deeds, 01:18:14.420 |
So the purpose of the church is so that we may actively seek to 01:18:23.420 |
So if you come to church and the only thought you have is, 01:18:31.420 |
You're not -- you're thinking only of yourself, right? 01:18:35.420 |
The purpose of the church is so that those who are strong could 01:18:42.420 |
And if you've ever been a part of the church and you're away, 01:18:45.420 |
right, you know physically the difference a good church makes, 01:18:50.420 |
a good fellowship, having brothers and sisters around you, 01:18:59.420 |
God did not design Christians to be alone, right? 01:19:02.420 |
He designed our sanctification and worship of God to happen in 01:19:09.420 |
And then finally, the church is a gathering of God's people for 01:19:15.420 |
This is something that happens to a church that's been around 01:19:18.420 |
for a while, and after a while, instead of evangelizing, 01:19:21.420 |
we get so caught up in maintaining that we forget 01:19:26.420 |
But evangelism is the heartbeat of the church, right? 01:19:44.420 |
The church is or was, okay, established by Christ for the 01:19:50.420 |
gathering of believers for the purpose of worship, equipping, 01:20:01.420 |
The church was established by Christ, right, established by 01:20:08.420 |
Christ for the gathering of believers for the purpose of 01:20:12.420 |
worship, equipping, fellowship, and evangelism, okay? 01:20:25.420 |
If you can say this without looking at this, free coffee. 01:20:39.420 |
What I'm going to ask you to do is I want you to do your best to 01:20:43.420 |
memorize it, at least get the key elements, those six things. 01:20:50.420 |
Established by Christ for the gathering of believers for the 01:20:53.420 |
purpose of worship, equipping, fellowship, and evangelism. 01:20:59.420 |
You think you can get that by the time you guys go to your 01:21:09.420 |
The church was established by Christ for the gathering of 01:21:14.420 |
believers for the purpose of worship, equipping, fellowship, 01:21:23.420 |
I'm going to ask you guys to see if you can do that in your small 01:21:28.420 |
So that's what leads to our fourfold vision at church, okay? 01:21:36.420 |
Engaging in God-centered worship, equipping believers with 01:21:39.420 |
God's word, building Christ-centered community, 01:21:43.420 |
And let me give you a brief explanation because worship, 01:21:46.420 |
equipping, fellowship, and outreach is all mentioned, but 01:21:57.420 |
It's not worship if the primary focus is you, right? 01:22:03.420 |
Worship is we see something beyond us, and we give it worth. 01:22:08.420 |
That's where the English word "worship" comes from. 01:22:15.420 |
If you come and you're the primary concern of the church, 01:22:18.420 |
you're the primary concern of why you're gathered, then that's 01:22:30.420 |
A lot of people say, "Well, we're going to equip." 01:22:39.420 |
We're going to have, you know, community exercises where we're 01:22:42.420 |
going to learn how to, you know, be team building and all this 01:22:45.420 |
And all this stuff you can say, "Oh, we're equipping." 01:22:47.420 |
But the equipping we're talking about is with the Word of God, 01:22:56.420 |
Just because the church gathers together and they practice 01:23:03.420 |
In other words, it must be Christ-glorifying, 01:23:12.420 |
So fellowship, just because you gather together and Christians 01:23:23.420 |
Not just reaching out, not just because they're poor, 01:23:26.420 |
not just because there's some, you know, people who are in need, 01:23:29.420 |
but specifically reaching out with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, 01:23:34.420 |
And hopefully if you're members at our church that you can also 01:23:43.420 |
this one hopefully we say it enough and repeat it enough that 01:23:46.420 |
you can just repeat this to somebody else and explain. 01:23:49.420 |
If somebody asks you, "What is your church about? 01:23:59.420 |
This is just a summary of what we see in the Bible. 01:24:05.420 |
Worship, equipping, fellowship, evangelism can only be practiced 01:24:11.420 |
We can't practice any of this with non-Christians. 01:24:16.420 |
How do you equip non-believers when they don't believe in God 01:24:20.420 |
How do you have fellowship when fellowship means to partner? 01:24:24.420 |
How do you evangelize when they're the ones we're trying 01:24:35.420 |
you weren't allowed to come to worship, right? 01:24:44.420 |
We live in a post-Christian culture where the doors are open, 01:24:47.420 |
where non-Christian can come, where you can invite your family 01:24:51.420 |
Because we are doing that, we are allowing the non-Christians 01:24:57.420 |
we need to be able to identify who's the church. 01:24:59.420 |
And that's the primary reason why we have membership, 01:25:07.420 |
not just who are people who are curious about the church, 01:25:13.420 |
If we open our doors to allow non-believers to be in the 01:25:15.420 |
gathering of the church, we need to be able to identify 01:25:19.420 |
So this is the reason why we practice membership. 01:25:29.420 |
In summary, and I'm not going to go through all that, 01:25:31.420 |
I'm just going to show you the pages because I know you guys 01:25:37.420 |
to have God-centered worship, we have to have a high view of God. 01:25:50.420 |
He's the one who's gracious to us, not us to him. 01:25:55.420 |
Like if God giving you his only begotten son is not enough, 01:26:04.420 |
Like I believe that Jesus gave his only begotten son. 01:26:08.420 |
And then you're living every day and say, "Yeah, 01:26:35.420 |
So no matter where you are in life, we owe him our life. 01:26:40.420 |
This is a gathering of people who have been saved from eternal 01:26:52.420 |
the church is filled with people who owe him everything, right? 01:26:57.420 |
So it doesn't make sense that we do not have this high view of God. 01:27:05.420 |
a gathering of people who are indebted to what God has done, 01:27:09.420 |
and so we come here to thank him, glorify him, praise him, right? 01:27:17.420 |
Secondly, we need to have a high view of his word. 01:27:19.420 |
If you have a high view of God, where is that reflected? 01:27:29.420 |
We don't look at the scripture and say, "You know what? 01:27:31.420 |
I don't know if I like this male leadership." 01:27:36.420 |
If you have a high view of God, we listen to him. 01:27:40.420 |
And in time, even if it doesn't make sense to you, 01:27:43.420 |
I guarantee you in time you will understand the wisdom 01:27:52.420 |
Maybe some things you might have a hard time understanding 01:27:54.420 |
when you're in your 20s, but I guarantee you every part of this, 01:27:58.420 |
there's going to come a time in your life you're going to look back at that 01:28:04.420 |
Think how dumb we were just 10 years ago, right? 01:28:10.420 |
I mean, honestly, every single one of us, no matter how old you are, 01:28:13.420 |
think about how you were thinking, what you did 10 years ago, 01:28:18.420 |
Every single one of us, if we turned the clock back and said, 01:28:23.420 |
I wish I knew this when I was young," every single one of us, 01:28:26.420 |
you think that's not going to happen in another 10 years and 20 years? 01:28:29.420 |
You think you've come to the peak of knowledge and understanding 01:28:34.420 |
So from this point on, all your judgment is correct, 01:28:39.420 |
and people who regret just 10, 15 years ago are going to look at an almighty God 01:28:51.420 |
I mean, we're going to regret just 20 years ago, 01:28:57.420 |
The things that you're thinking because of different perspective 01:29:00.420 |
and experience that you're going to have, and you're going to say, 01:29:07.420 |
So does that make sense for finite, flawed beings, even morally flawed people, 01:29:16.420 |
to look at an almighty, perfect being and then question him, right? 01:29:21.420 |
So if you have a high view of God, you must have a high view of his word. 01:29:25.420 |
And then if you have a high view of his word, the way that gets translated 01:29:30.420 |
So some people think that if you have a high view of the word of God, 01:29:34.420 |
No, doctrine is an accumulation of the word of God, right? 01:29:40.420 |
It doesn't mean that every doctrine has the same weight, 01:29:42.420 |
but doctrine basically is an accumulation of studies. 01:29:47.420 |
the more you're going to accumulate certain views of certain things, right? 01:29:53.420 |
Why do we make such a big deal about baptism? 01:29:56.420 |
Because we believe in our accumulation of understanding what the word of God says 01:30:06.420 |
So if you have a high view of God, high view of the word, high view of doctrine, 01:30:10.420 |
then there must be a high view of your personal walk with God, 01:30:14.420 |
your personal holiness because you belong to him, right? 01:30:19.420 |
So if we're his and we have a high view of God, 01:30:22.420 |
you must have a high view of your own holiness. 01:30:26.420 |
And then finally, spiritual authority, right? 01:30:32.420 |
High view of God, high view of his word, high view of doctrine, 01:30:35.420 |
high view of your holiness, right, your personal application, 01:30:42.420 |
You must have a high view of the church because this is where he says, 01:30:45.420 |
"Do you not know that you are the temple of God 01:30:48.420 |
and the spirit of God dwells in you," plural, 01:30:56.420 |
So therefore, we have to have a high view of his church. 01:30:59.420 |
So if you're going to have a high view of God, high view of the word, 01:31:01.420 |
high view of doctrine, high view of our holiness, 01:31:10.420 |
We must have the highest view of corporate worship. 01:31:15.420 |
Now, that's not my subject today, so I'm not going to get into that, right? 01:31:23.420 |
you must have a high view of corporate worship. 01:31:31.420 |
So this -- I'm not going to read it, but this basically says the goal -- 01:31:36.420 |
I know there's a lot of things that you may have discussed in this chapter, 01:31:39.420 |
but the goal of the church is not simply to get you to change your behavior, right? 01:31:46.420 |
It's to get you to think properly and have a proper attitude, right? 01:31:52.420 |
So if you have an attitude of thanksgiving, does that affect the way you serve? 01:32:02.420 |
Does that affect the way that you worship God? 01:32:09.420 |
But if you have somebody where their inner person is bitter, grumpy, angry, judgmental, 01:32:16.420 |
and yet they're high-functioning, they take worship very seriously, 01:32:21.420 |
they're always memorizing Scripture, they're doing -- what happens to that person? 01:32:26.420 |
Is God honored, glorified by an individual who's high-functioning but have a bad attitude? 01:32:33.420 |
No, because real worship happens from within, right? 01:32:39.420 |
He doesn't want people just to get an A, right? 01:32:45.420 |
He wants a church to worship him in spirit and in truth. 01:32:48.420 |
So the primary goal of the church is so that your inner being would become more 01:32:55.420 |
and more of somebody that can worship, that can serve, that can evangelize, right? 01:33:02.420 |
So the focus of sanctification is who you are before what you do. 01:33:08.420 |
And that's why the key is the teaching of the Word of God, right? 01:33:13.420 |
Everybody could be very high-functioning, serving everywhere, memorizing Scripture, 01:33:18.420 |
doing all their Bible study, but inwardly they're grumbling, complaining, 01:33:30.420 |
The fruit of the Spirit is what leads to evangelism, what leads to worship, 01:33:45.420 |
Try to recite the definition of the church by memory, which is homework for you tonight, okay? 01:33:52.420 |
Number two, what does it mean practically to have a high view of God, 01:33:57.420 |
We say you have the high view, but what does that mean practically in application? 01:34:00.420 |
Think of at least three examples of how these things should impact the way we practice our Christian lives, okay? 01:34:08.420 |
Why do you think practicing membership is important for the health of the church? 01:34:13.420 |
What are some ramifications of a church that has low expectations of their members? 01:34:18.420 |
Or think of one practical application on how you can be a better member of Christ's church this coming week, okay? 01:34:25.420 |
Would you pray for us, and then I'll give you time to discuss these questions. 01:34:33.420 |
Father, we pray that the truths of Your Word would impact our hearts, 01:34:38.420 |
and as You told us, Lord God, that You are seeking people to worship You in spirit and in truth, 01:34:43.420 |
help us, Lord, to understand Your purpose in the church and why You have made a covenant with it, 01:34:51.420 |
and that we would have a deeper understanding of why we are gathered and what it is exactly that we are building. 01:34:56.420 |
So I pray that You would bless a time of discussion, help us to be open and honest, 01:35:00.420 |
and that we would be able to practically apply all that You teach us.