The Lord’s Day
October 2, 2006
What It Means to Be a Member of FPC
The Five Questions of Church Membership
Matthew 16:24
3. Do you now resolve
and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit,
that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ?
Amen. If you have your bibles I’d invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 16 as we continue to work our way through the 5 questions of membership.
You have heard beautifully sung today these biblical words, the call of God to sinners to come to him and be refreshed. This was a call of the Lord Jesus Christ when He said come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. It is a central part of the gospel message to realize that He alone can provide us satisfaction and refreshment of our souls.
This is not the only call that the Lord Jesus gave. We sang about that call in hymn number 591; the call to follow Christ, the call to be disciples of Christ, the call to leave the world behind and to follow Him, the call to be prepared to go through the difficulties and trials of life in following Him. Both of those are central aspects of the biblical message.
And this third question of membership that we are going to study today
focuses in on the call that Jesus has made to us as disciples. You remember when He told the disciples in Matthew chapter 28 to go and evangelize. His specific words were ‘Go and make disciples’. So that it wasn’t just going to mean people who would name the name of Jesus Christ or people who would merely profess to be His followers, but those who would actually be disciples, followers of Jesus Christ is what Jesus commanded his disciples to go do. And that is what this third question of membership is about.
Let me just remind you where we’ve been so far in this series. When we looked at the first question of membership, “Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure and without hope except in His sovereign mercy?”, we said that acknowledging that we are sinners in need of grace and without hope apart from God’s mercy would produce at least two qualities in us as Christians and as a congregation.
First of all we said that it would produce humility in us. If we are truly acknowledging that we are sinners and that our only hope is God’s grace, then there is absolutely nothing in that message to make us prideful. In fact exactly the opposite – we ought to be the most humble people in the world to realize that everything we have we have from God as a gift and as a grant that is undeserved. All that we deserved was God’s condemnation, judgment, and eternal punishment, but in His mercy He gave us grace and that ought to make us a humble people. As a people and as individuals we ought to be characterized by humility if we really understand that first question and if we really meant it when we became members of this congregation, we would be a humble people.
But we also said it would make us a joyful people because realizing that, despite our deserving of judgment that God has granted to us, this rich and saving mercy in Jesus Christ, ought to cause us to celebrate the sovereignty of God’s mercy in all of life. So we ought to be both humble and joyful if we really understand that first question, if we really mean it, if we are really sincere when we say “I do” to it.
Then we looked at the second question. And the second question is: “Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of sinners and do you receive and trust on Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the gospel?” And we said that that question had four parts to it. It pointed us to faith, the person of Christ, the work of Christ, and to the uniqueness of Christ. That is, it pointed us to the way of our receiving salvation as faith in Christ, not our works, but faith in Christ and that the object of our faith was the person of Christ. So our faith is not only believing certain truths which are taught to us in the Bible, though that’s part of it, but our faith is actually in a person. It’s trust in the person of Christ, but that also the object of our trust is not only Christ, but Christ crucified.
In other words, our hope is in both the person and the work of Christ, the Christ who died for our sins on the tree, the One that is the Savior of sinners. And we also said in that question that it emphasizes that Christ alone is the Savior of the world.
Well, what comes out of that? A number of things are implications of that, but if you really understand that and you really mean it when you say that question or say “I do” to that question, I think at least four things are going to result.
The first thing is simply this: that as a people, as a congregation and as individuals, none of us are going to believe that we can save ourselves. If you really understand that question and mean it when you say “I do”, you are going to know that you cannot save yourselves. That is hugely important because everywhere that we turn in the religious world today we find people who, whether they realize it not, are trying to save themselves. They are through their lives and deeds and activities trying to earn them way back into God’s good favor. And if you really understand this question, you’ll never do that. You’ll know that you can’t save yourself. You’ll be able to sing with the hymn writer when he says “not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul” so that none of the tears, and none of the contrition, and none of the feeling of guilt, and none of the doing of good deeds can contribute to the saving of our souls.
That is the first thing. We will know that that is a dead end. That salvation by our good works is a dead end. We won’t even try and go there. That has a dramatic effect on the life of a congregation.
Secondly, and connected to that, if we really understand that second question and mean it when we say “I do” then as a people we will understand that salvation is a gift to be received, not a status to be earned . And of course that realization totally changes the way that we approach the heavenly Father. If we think that there are all sorts of things that we need to do in order to get God to love us savingly, then our approach to God will be dramatically different than if we understand that the gracious, loving, heavenly Father reached out to us in saving love long before we deserved it, long before we were interested in it, and without our having done anything to condition His love towards us, to earn His love towards us, we know what an impact this has on a family. When a person grows up in a family with a mother and a father who love them, who just love them, not conditionally in the sense of “if you do good today I’ll love you, but if you do bad tomorrow I won’t love you,” but some one who knows that their mother and their father loves them unconditionally. It changes everything and when there is a manipulative, conditional,
demeaning relationship in which a parent does not express love to a child, or withholds that love for a child, or gives that child the feeling that “if you don’t do x, y, and z then you’re not worthy of my love, you’re not accepted in my family.”
Transpose that into our relationship with God. Realizing that salvation is a gift to be received, not a status to be earned changes the way we relate to God dramatically. And that ought to be something that pervades the life of our congregation. Many of us will have grown up in loving Christian homes where we knew our mother and father loved us. There are times when we disappointed them and it was the last thing we wanted to do to let them down, but we knew that they would never stop loving us. And others of us grew up in homes where we did not know that kind of love, but no matter, when we experience the love of God to us that gives to us the salvation as a gift, He begins to work deep into our hearts and all through our lives and change us and it will show in the way we relate to one another as a congregational family and in the way we relate to the world as well as in the way we relate to our heavenly Father.
Thirdly, if we really understand that second question and really mean it when we say “I do,” then it will mean that we realize that our lives as Christians are radically Christ-centered and cross-centered. Because that question acknowledges that the very beginning of the Christian life begins with trust being pointed away from ourselves towards Jesus Christ who is the Lord and Son of God and Savior of sinners so that our hope and trust is focused on Christ and his cross, Christ’s person and work. And we’ll recognize that there is no place in the Christian life, which is not in direct eyesight of Christ and His cross. There is no aspect of the Christian life that does not flow out of Christ and His cross. There’s no place where God intends us to be in the Christian life where there should not be a clear shot of sight right back to Christ and his cross. The whole of the Christian life will be radically Christ-centered and cross-centered.
And fourth and finally, if we understand and really believe that question when we say “I do,” then we’re going to know that Jesus is our and everyone else’s only hope of salvation. That is a politically incorrect thing to say today, but if you really believe that it totally changes your approach to live. There comes an urgency about this gospel message that we bear. And we recognize that this is an issue about which the lives of men and women hang in the balance. And then in the end there are going to only be 2 kinds of people in the world; those who are with God and those who are not, those who have embraced Christ and those who have not. It will give us a loving urgency in our relationships with unbelieving friends.
Now these questions of membership, if we really allow them to permeate our hearts and lives will be life transforming and today we come to the third of them and this has to do with Christian discipleship and Jesus’ radical call to discipleship because He not only called us to come to Him with all our burdens and all our cares and all our sorrows and to be given rest, but He also calls us to come to Him, to deny ourselves, to take up our cross, and to follow Him. And that is a radical call and it is a call that you are not hearing many places in the world today. If you turn on TV preachers today, I’ll bet you that you won’t find 1 in 10 giving this radical call. It will all be about “you.” It will all be about what’s in it for you. It will all be about the blessings that you are going to get, especially if you contribute or sow a seed of faith with their ministry, but it won’t be all about God, and about self-denial, and all about following Christ. The reason that it won’t be is that they aren’t teaching what Jesus taught because Jesus’ call is the most radical call in the world. And I want to say today to young people and old, it is when we as a congregation embrace this radical call, it is then and only then that our community and neighbors around us will wake up to the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives and the lives of this church as a people, as a group, as a body. That power will be evident and tangible and palpable as we embrace this call of discipleship.
And the question that we ask and answer, the third question is: “Do you now resolve and promise in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit that you will endeavor to live as becomes followers of Christ?” There is a lot in that question but I only want to focus on two things with you today.
The first thing is simply this: the resolution, the commitment, the call to be followers of Christ, and secondly, the recognition that this can only be done by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Those are the only 2 things I want to think with you about today. Now we are going to get back to Matthew 16. I told you it would take me about 10 minutes to get there.
We’re there now.
Take your Bibles and look with me at Matthew 16 verse 24 -26. And before we do, let’s pray.
Heavenly father, we ask for Your Holy Spirit to open our eyes to behold wonder things from Your Word and especially as we read these words, O God, we recognize that
we need Your help not simply to understand them, but to respond to them because these words are easier to say and read than to embrace and do. So by our Holy Spirit help us to be both hearers and doers of Your Word. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now, on your outlines I have Matthew 16, I Peter chapter 2, and Romans 12 written down, but we are going to focus this morning just on Matthew 16 verses 24-26 and then one other passage when we come to the second point in the message. So let’s hear God’s word from Matthew 16.
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me,
He must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Amen. And thus
ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired, and inerrant word. May He write its
eternal truth upon our hearts.
I. All true Christians are resolved to live as followers of Christ
The Lord Jesus is giving a radical call to His disciples in that passage and I don’t expect that you will pass by any church in our area doing billboards with this particular evangelistic campaign.
“Come, die with Me. Come, deny yourself. Come, lose your life.
Come, take up your cross.”
No, you’ll see all sorts of campaigns letting you know what’s in it for you if you’ll visit Church Brand X, but you won’t hear this radical call. But we need to hear this call. This call is what’s entailed in that third question of membership. When we say, ”I do” to the question, “Do you now resolve and promise in humble reliance upon the Holy Spirit that you will endeavor to live as becomes a follower of Christ?” we are saying, “Yes, Lord” to this radical call. We are saying,
“Yes, I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back.
The world behind me, the cross before me.
Though none go with me, still I
will follow.”
We are saying, “Yes, Lord, I will be your disciple because Jesus is calling disciples.
He is calling people who want to be like Him, those who will follow Him, who will relate to the world the way He related to the world. They’ll be in the world, but they won’t be of it. They’ll march to the beat of a different drum. They won’t march to the beat of the world’s drum. They will be in the world but marching to the beat of Christ’s drum. They will follow Christ. And the Lord Jesus says to His disciples in this passage that if they want to come after Him they must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him. And it’s the most radical message ever given.
And it’s so unexpected and it’s so not what so many people want in our day and age. They want an easy message. They want a message that’s all about their purposes and their plans and their agendas and their satisfactions and their joy and their growth. Jesus’ message is: deny yourself. Jesus’ message is: take up your cross. Jesus’ message is: follow Me.
And you see that when we answer that third question of membership, we are acknowledging that we are to live as followers of Christ because all true Christians are disciples. There is no such thing as people who are saved and then disciples: two separate categories. There are people who are saved and disciples and that’s the same category. All those who have received the grace of Christ for salvation, have also received the grace of Christ for sanctification. All those who trust in Christ for salvation, long to be like Christ, they want to grow in grace, they want to follow him. And the Lord Jesus is saying to you, Christian, “Follow me.”
And this is a very difficult thing to do in our day and age. For one thing, we live in a day and age that is fabulously wealthy. We live in the most wealthy country, in the most wealthy culture in the history of the world. And we ourselves are by and large people of significant means. And you remember the Lord Jesus Christ said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Why? – Because people who are rich in whatever way don’t recognize their poverty. They don’t recognize their neediness. They’re satisfied. They’re fat with the things of this world. They’re delighted and preoccupied with the things of the world and they don’t realize the value of what Jesus is offering them.
And so the Lord Jesus Christ says to one young man, poignantly isn’t it, when that rich young ruler comes to him and he is interested in Christ and he is asking Christ deep questions, questions about salvation, questions about eternal life. And Christ is speaking to him and they are talking about the commandments. And finally Christ says to that young man, “Look, sell everything that you have. Give it to the poor and come follow me”. And you remember that man’s heartbreaking answer, “I can’t.”
You see Jesus was placing before him the same question, the same issue that He places before every would-be disciple. It’s either Me or everything else. Which is it going to be? Jesus is calling us to a total commitment. That is what Paul is talking about in Romans chapter 12 verse 1 when he says, “Give your bodies as a living sacrifice”. It’s a way that Paul can say give the whole of who you are to God as a living sacrifice. That’s what Jesus is asking us to do; to follow Him in that way.
Now my friends, two of the great challenges for us in our congregation, in our culture, in our city, in our situation, two of the great challenges for us in trying to really mean it and live it when we say “Yes, I’m going to be and live as a follower of Jesus Christ,” two of the great challenges for us are nominalism, in name only Christianity, and worldliness.
Let me talk about those for a few moments. We live in a culture where it’s not nice not to call everybody a Christian. In our culture, in our Bible-belt culture, drifting secular but still Bible-belt, everybody born in Mississippi is a Christian, right? Whether you’re Hindu, Muslim, Jewish or otherwise, you’re a Christian, right? Because Christian means not, follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it means nice person in our culture. Who among us nice southerners wants to call someone else not a nice person? Unless it’s behind their back. But we certainly would not want to do it to their face. And consequently, there are many people in our churches who think that Christian means “nice person”. And they’re Christian in name only. They haven’t encountered the radical, life-transforming gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They haven’t been changed, born again, converted, regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit. They haven’t come to faith in Christ because for them Christian means “nice person”, person who goes to church a couple of times a year, person who drops a couple of shekels in the plate, person who hasn’t done time at Parchman. That is what it means. That’s a Christian: in name only, Christianity. It’s a real challenge because there is a cultural Christianity, a veneer of Christianity that still exists in our context and it confuses people about the radical nature of the gospel.
Problem number 2: worldliness. We, folks, we are working as hard as we can to keep one foot in the world and one foot in the church. We want to snuggle up as close as we can get to the world for about 6/7th of the week and then for about an hour or two on Sunday we want to act like Christians.
My friends, what this radical discipleship shows us is where the rubber meets the road. Where does following Christ come to play? It comes to play in our homes. Husbands who want a name to be a Christian, I want to be called a Christian, I want to be a leader in the church, but I also want to have that affair with that woman who is not my wife. And Jesus is saying, “You can be a Christian and you can be faithful to your wife, or you can go have that affair and you cannot be a Christian, you can’t be a disciple of Me. But you can’t do both with impunity.”
Or maybe you are a young person. You so want to be accepted by your contemporaries in high school and college. You want to dance the way they dance. You want to grind the way they grind. You want to get drunk. You want to have sex. You want to do the things that you have to do to fit in with them because the worst thing in the world would be not to be popular, not to be accepted, not to fit in. And then Jesus’ is saying, “You can follow me or you can live like the world, but you can’t do both. Choose now.”
Jesus’ call is radical. He is saying it to Christians in business. You know, the people in the world say the bottom line is the bottom line. It’s about getting ahead. It’s about doing well. It’s about doing better than your neighbor. It’s about keeping up with the Jones’. Whatever you have to do to get that bottom line even if it means a lack of integrity and Jesus is saying, “Look, you can either act with integrity as a witness of mine, as a follower of mine in the way you do business or you can do it the way you want to, but you can’t be my follower and do it the way the world does it.”
At every point whether it’s being a good mother and wife, whether it’s being a good husband and father, whether it’s being a good employer or employee, whether it’s being a faithful student, no matter where we are in our culture the Lord Jesus Christ is saying to us, “I want you to be My followers there.” And you can’t follow the world and follow me. “No man,” Jesus says, “can serve two masters” because he’s in the end going to delight in one and hate the other.
He is issuing a radical call to discipleship and when we say, “I do”, we’re saying, “I have decided to follow Jesus.” And it is so hard because we want to snuggle up to that world as close as we can get.
II. All true Christians know that they can do this only by the grace of the Holy Spirit
But second thing I want to see and I’ll say it quickly, but it’s so important for you to hear this is that all true Christians are not only resolved to live as followers of Christ, but all true Christians know that this cannot happen apart from the grace of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is not saying, “Ok, now look, I saved you the rest is up to you.” He is not saying, “Now, I’ve saved you, now you live the Christian life the best you can. Pull yourself up by your boot straps.” Because friends, that won’t work.
There are a few Christians in here who don’t know what it means to seriously stumble along the way. We know what it is to stumble. We’ve made enough New Year’s resolutions that were broken by January 4th to know that we can’t do this on our own.
And that’s what we profess in this question. We say that we know we can only do this by the grace of the Holy Spirit. One of my favorite passages in the whole New Testament about this is Philippians chapter 2. Let me ask you to turn there. In Philippians chapter 2 verses 5-11, you have that glorious passage about Jesus Christ and about his humiliation on our behalf and it is given as an example for us. And at the end of that passage in Philippians 2:12, the Apostle Paul issues a stirring challenge. It’s just as challenging as the passage we read from Matthew 16 verses 24 – 26 from the lips of Jesus.
Paul says this, “In light of Jesus’ humiliation,” he says, “so then, my beloved,
just as you have always obeyed not in my presence only but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”
The Apostle Paul is saying this, “Look, your growth, your sanctification, your approach to the Christian life ought to be one of dead seriousness and sobriety. You ought to approach your growth in grace with awe and trembling. You ought to take it that seriously that you realize that you live under the gaze of God, that everything you do you do in God’s sight.”
But he doesn’t stop there. What does he say? What’s the very next thing he says in verse 13? Why is it the you should approach your growth in grace, your discipleship, your following of Christ, your becoming more like Christ, your sanctification with awe and trembling? – Because it is God who is at work in you both to will and to do His good pleasure.
What is Paul saying? Paul is saying he has not left it up to you. God is at work in you and he is not finished with you yet.
So if you are a Christian today and you have fallen flat on your face, you’ve broken every one of the 10 commandments just like David once did, but you are resolved to follow Jesus and you are repentant of your sins, you recognize that Paul is saying, “Friend, ultimately our growth is dependent upon the work of God in us by the grace of His Holy Spirit.”
And even as the prophets Of the Old Testament spoke of a day when God would by His Spirit write the law on our hearts, so now God by His Spirit is writing His law on the hearts of his people.
And, my friends, all true Christians are resolved to live as followers of Christ, but no Christian can do this apart from the grace of the Holy Spirit. And we learned both of those very important things in this one question based as it is on the teachings of scripture.
Let’s pray.
“Lord God, when we resolve to follow Jesus we need more than our personal
resolution . We need You. So by your Holy Spirit give us grace to answer the call,
“Yes, Jesus, I will follow.” This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Now may the God of Peace sanctify you entirely and may your spirit, soul, and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
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What it means to be
a member of First Presbyterian Church:
The Five
Questions of Membership (3)
Matthew 16:24-26; 1 Peter 2:21-24; Romans 12:1-2
3. Do you now resolve
and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit,
that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ?
Introduction (review):
1. Two weeks ago, we looked at the first question of
membership: (1) Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God,
justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy?
2. In this question we acknowledge that we are (1) sinners, (2)
justly condemned and (3) without hope (apart from Christ).
3. We said that two implications of this question (if we really
understand and mean it when we answer it "I do") are that we will be (1)
people of humility, (2) who rejoice in
God’s sovereignty
4. Last week, we considered the second question of
membership: (2) Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and
Savior of sinners, and do you receive and trust Him alone for salvation as He is
offered in the gospel?
5. We said that this meant that Christians have faith in
Christ’s person and work, alone. (1) Faith; (2) Person; (3) Work; (4) Alone
6. The implications of this are many, but here are a few:
understanding and meaning it when we answer this questions means that we realize
that (1) we cannot save ourselves, that (2)
for us salvation is a gift to be received not a status to be earned, that
(3) life is radically Christ-centered and cross-centered; that
(4) Jesus is our and everyone else’s only hope.
7. Today, we come to the third question of membership:
(3) Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the
Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ?
All Christians are
disciples, followers of Christ. All followers of Christ, are resolved,
committed, have promised, to live like his followers, and they know that for
this they will need the grace of the Holy Spirit.
I. All true Christians are resolved to live as followers of Christ
Matthew 16:24-26 24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come
after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 "For
whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My
sake will find it. 26 "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world
and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
1 Peter 2:21-24 21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.
Romans 12:1
1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies
a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service
of worship.
II. All true Christians know that they can do this only by
the grace of the Holy Spirit
Ezekiel 36:27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances."
Philippians 2:12-13 12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.