Good morning. Can you hear me? That's great.
Good morning. My name's Chris. I'm a teaching pastor here at Watermark,
and I echo Leo's sentiments about the weather.
In fact, I'm from the UK, so in the UK, it's like 24 degrees is like tropical weather.
And yet here, I'm getting cold at 24 degrees, so I'm feeling a real wimp.
And one of the things that I've been just thinking about and reading recently,
I've been reading 1 Corinthians.
And in 1 Corinthians, I just had this very simple thought struck me.
Jesus loves his church.
Did you get that?
It's not rocket science. It's not kind of mind-blowing,
except you see when you read through Scripture, Jesus calls his church,
his building, his temple, his bride, his body, his flock, his saints, his disciples,
his servants, his family, his people.
Jesus loves his church.
And just kind of look around you for a second.
Okay, it's audience participation.
Okay, look around you.
The church is not a building.
The church is not a place.
The church is primarily a people.
You and me, we are the church.
Which means you and I are the church that Jesus loves.
You and I are the church that is so costly that Jesus died,
paid the ultimate price that you might come to be part of his church.
That's how much he wants you to be part of his body.
He paid with his entire life.
It is grace, pure grace, that you are part of his church.
And if you think about it, it truly is grace,
because if you actually get to know each other,
then you are really amazed that it's grace,
because some of you have just incredibly weird tastes in TV shows.
Some of you have strange personalities.
Some of us have habits,
which normally we would never hang around with people
who had those kind of habits, right?
They're not the kind of people you'd always choose
to hang out on a Friday night with.
But Jesus died that you and I might be part of his body.
He says he loves his church.
Some people say,
I love Jesus, but I don't like the church.
That's a bit like saying,
I like you, but your body is really ugly.
You know, that's not nice, right?
That's not the way you love the church.
And yet Jesus says the church is his plan A.
You know, in the Bible,
he doesn't have a plan B, right?
The church is his plan A.
And all through the New Testament,
90 times out of 114 times,
whenever the word church is mentioned,
it's all about the local church.
All about the local church.
So the question that kind of kept coming back to me was,
if Jesus loves his church that much,
how much do I love his church?
How much do I love this church
that he's brought me into?
And today we're kind of talking about membership.
And if this is your first time
and you're a visitor here,
you're just really welcome.
You kind of listen in to the conversation
that we want to be having.
And really, I just, I mentioned last week,
but I'm just so aware that membership is something
we as a church have not really talked about well.
We haven't done well at all, I think.
We've done it since,
we've done it since right at the beginning.
And yet, I think some of you,
I mean, I know that we haven't done it well
because some of you are like saying,
I'm not sure whether I am a signed member
of the church or not.
Let me just check.
Did I sign that thing?
Okay, I've been talking to some of you,
so I know that this is the case,
which shows that actually we want to make
what it means to be a member
more meaningful in the church.
And so that's what we want to kind of be
talking about today, looking at the Bible.
We're going to be having some membership classes
coming up, and we just really want everyone
to be engaged with this.
Many churches practice membership,
and it's kind of becomes this like
exclusive little holy club for really holy people.
I don't know if you've been in those kind of churches.
You know, I've also seen other churches
where they do kind of membership,
and it's like they lower the bar so low to be a member
that kind of anyone can just kind of walk in,
and suddenly they're kind of the member of the church.
And yet, when you look at Scripture,
Jesus never lowers the bar for what it means
to be a disciple of his.
In fact, Jesus lost followers
because he wouldn't lower the bar.
And the church actually grew
because he wouldn't lower the bar.
And he didn't say,
okay, you've got to kind of meet up to this standard
to be a member of the church.
He said, no, I have met the standard.
Now I want you to follow me
and walk with me
in your brokenness, in your sinfulness,
and realize that I am going to lead you to walk
as I call you to be as part of my people.
So here's why I think
we just need to be talking about membership.
Because as a church,
I think just even what Jeremy was sharing,
one of the most amazing things I see
is we're really a community who serves together,
who really tries to value each other,
engage in each other's lives,
and it's just amazing to see.
I could tell you many stories of what I'm seeing.
But I also noticed some other things.
I noticed that sometimes when difficulty
or struggles come,
when it comes to just kind of moving away,
sometimes people just slip out of the back door.
And you're like, oh, where was that person?
And they're like, oh, they left like two months ago.
And you're like, but as a family,
we want to be able to walk with you in that.
We want to be able to send you.
That's a great time for us to pray for you together.
And if we don't see that that's part of being a family,
you know, we've missed something
of what it means to be church.
You know, some of us don't know exactly
what we believe and why we believe.
I don't know if you,
I did an iTunes update this last week.
Do you know when you get the iTunes update
and they give you all the new terms and conditions,
how many of you actually ever read them?
Or do you just click agree?
Like, I have never read a single one of those iTunes.
Now, Alfie told me,
like, I have no idea what I'm signing up to.
No idea.
Alfie actually told me that apparently
you're not supposed to make nuclear weapons
with your iPad.
So that's one of the agreements,
which I didn't know.
But it's a good thing I'm keeping that one.
But the thing is,
nothing terrible has happened to me so far.
So I think it's cool, right?
I think it's fine.
And you know, the thing is,
I can treat church in the same way.
It's like, I know the deal.
I just click agree by coming to church on a Sunday.
But in fact, do I understand
what I'm really signing up for
when I say I'm a Christian and I belong to the church?
Do I know what it is?
You know, I have,
I've had people come to me and say,
hey, I need you to sign this form
to say that I'm a member of Watermark
for the school that my child is trying to get in.
And I haven't seen them for weeks or months.
And I've heard they go into about three different churches.
And I'm like,
maybe we need to think about
what it actually means to be a member of a church.
Because the Bible has some very significant things
to say about it.
And so I want us just to talk about
a few different things.
Membership is about commitment.
Membership is about belonging.
Membership is about accountability.
And membership is about submission.
Okay?
So that's just kind of where we're going to go.
We're going to start with
membership is about commitment.
And if you have your Bible
or your bulletin with you,
we're just going to kind of go through
a few of these different passages together.
So we're going to start looking in Acts 2.
Acts 2, it's the birth of the church.
Remember, Jesus says to Peter,
I'm going to build my church through you, Peter.
I'm going to build it.
It's my church.
And then Pentecost happens.
The Spirit comes down.
3,000 people get saved.
And do you know what it says?
It says they got baptized
and they get added to the church.
And then verse 42 says,
they devoted themselves
to the apostles' teaching,
the fellowship,
the breaking of bread,
and the prayers.
They devoted themselves.
Do you know what that word devoted means?
It actually means to cling on to,
to hold fast to
with perseverance and persistence.
That's what it means.
You know,
when you have a teenager
who is devoted
to playing Assassin's Creed
on their Xbox One,
what does it look like?
Right?
You know,
they will,
even though they could be eating
or sleeping,
they're willing
to hold fast
to that game console
just because there's something
about it that's important for them.
Nothing's moving them from that.
There's a commitment.
When the passage says
they devoted themselves,
they committed themselves
to the apostles' teaching.
They were so desperate
for God's word
that they were going
to just cling to it.
They were committed
to one another.
So it says
they had all things in common.
They sold their possessions.
They gave money
to those who are in need.
I mean,
just think how committed
you've got to be
to give away your stuff.
I mean,
that's pretty committed.
And then,
they were meeting daily
in the temple.
You know,
they were kind of,
so the temple's like
Sunday sermon,
kind of,
it's big group gathering.
A lot of people
can fit there.
Then they met
in each other's homes,
small groups,
like our CGs.
They're loving each other.
And they're doing
all of this
and it doesn't seem like,
oh no,
I've got to do this.
It's actually,
Jesus has captured them
in such a way
that their commitment
to Jesus
is always lived out
through the commitment
to the people
that he provides
around them
in his church.
So here's the progression
of faith.
You hear and believe
the gospel.
You get baptized.
You get added
to a local church
and then you devote
yourselves there
to the people,
to God's word,
to prayer,
to really following Christ
in that community.
That's the biblical pattern.
So if you're thinking about it,
in the first century
in Jerusalem,
how many churches were there?
One.
Good answer, Graham.
Yes.
There was one church.
So when you got baptized,
which church you got committed to
was the church in Jerusalem
because there was only one.
There was no other choices.
And baptism was a huge sign
of commitment
because in a pagan culture,
you know,
being a Christian
wasn't cool.
But now the issue
for us
in our society
is in Hong Kong,
you know,
there's like over 1,500 churches.
And when you get baptized,
you get brought
into God's
universal church
and you're a believer
but you need to learn
where do I express that,
my identity in Christ
in a local church body?
Where do I do that?
And hopefully what you do
is you get baptized
and if you're not,
if you're Christian
and you're not baptized,
we want to encourage you
to get baptized.
So you get baptized
and then you,
hopefully you stay
in your local church.
But the thing is,
in our society,
things move.
People move.
Things change.
And so then
when you move on,
how are you going to express
your commitment
to your new church?
How do the elders know
that you're committed there?
How do you understand
what the church
really believes
more than you just
kind of like the music
and you like the atmosphere?
The way that we do that
is through membership process.
That's why we do it.
One of the things
I've noticed,
you know,
in Hong Kong,
I don't think it's only Hong Kong,
I think it's a lot of places,
but we can sometimes
treat Christianity
and church
kind of like a buffet.
You know,
we do church
kind of buffet style.
You know,
there's a bit of
spiritual sashimi over here,
a bit of teaching curry
over there.
You know,
we pick and choose
the little bits we like.
And so I hear this
all the time.
I hear,
hey,
I've started going
to this new church
and I just really love
the sermons over there.
They're so relevant.
But the community
is not great there.
I love going to that church
because they have
great community over there.
So I want to get engaged
in that community group there.
And then sometimes
my friends invite me
to another church
and I love the music there.
Right?
We're doing church
spiritual buffet style.
And the question is,
where has God called you
to love the church,
not just to date the church?
Are you there to give
or are you there to get?
The call of membership
is to stop dating the church
and to settle down
and marry her,
if I can use that analogy.
Right?
Now,
I'm not saying,
you go to a church,
you will find no church
which is a perfect church
which does everything.
If you join it,
anyway,
even if it was a perfect church,
it wouldn't be perfect
after you've joined.
But,
what membership is saying,
I'm going from being
a fan of this church
to being a family member.
I'm going from saying,
I like this,
to saying,
I'm committed.
I'm going to devote myself here.
That's what membership is about.
And so,
some of us
really just don't understand
in terms of,
Hong Kong is very transient.
It's very transient.
Some of us are only here
for a short time.
But God actually says,
when you look
and prayerfully look around
different churches,
you have to think,
where am I going to get plugged in?
Even if it's just a short time,
where is the church
I'm going to devote myself to?
And if it's this church,
great.
If it's another church,
great.
But God calls you
to devote yourself,
no matter how long you're here,
to a church.
Membership is about
commitment
to Jesus first
and then to the body
that he loves.
Okay,
that's the first thing.
Second thing,
membership is about
belonging.
Flick over to 1 Corinthians
for me.
I just want to spend
a little bit of time here.
1 Corinthians 12,
verse 12,
says this,
Just as the body is one
and has many members
and all the members
of the body,
though many are one body,
so it is with Christ.
For in one spirit
we were all baptized
into one body,
Jews or Greeks,
slave or free,
and all were made
to drink of one spirit.
Did you notice
how many times he said all?
Did you get that?
He said,
All members,
all baptized,
all drink of one body.
Yet we're one together,
but all of us
are important.
In the church in Corinth,
which is where Paul's talking,
it's a local church,
he's talking to people
who are thinking
things like that.
Well,
if I'm not engaged,
there's plenty of other people
who can take my place.
They're looking at everybody
else around them
and saying,
well,
I'm not as gifted as them.
I'm not as good
a communicator as them.
I'm not as extroverted as them.
I'm not quite as good.
So I'm not going to be a mist
if I don't engage in the body.
And Paul is saying to them,
guys,
don't you understand
who you are?
Don't you understand
what Jesus has brought you in?
You're a body.
And he says,
if the foot,
verse 14,
the foot should say,
because I'm not a hand,
I don't belong to the body,
that would not make it
any less a part of the body.
He's saying,
if you are a foot
and you go AWOL,
okay,
you're saying,
well,
I'm only smelly
and a little hairy.
I don't get much pictures
on Facebook.
So therefore,
I'm not so important.
He's saying,
no,
don't you realize,
just as with the body,
every part is valuable.
You have a unique contribution
to make in the body
where God has placed you.
Did you get that?
You,
say,
me,
I,
have a unique contribution
to make to God's body
that he has placed here.
I think we can miss that sometimes.
You know,
I heard of one guy
who left his church
recently
because the elders
wouldn't let him charge his phone
during the service.
Do you think he understood
his role as a member of the body?
I don't think so
because what this is saying
is there is something bigger
than just you
that God has brought you
to be a part of
and you have value in that.
The speaker,
Charles Spurgeon,
he said this to some people
who say,
hey,
I can be a good Christian
but I don't intend
to give myself to a church.
This is what he says.
He says,
think of a brick.
Okay?
What is the brick made for?
It's made to build a house.
It's no use
for the brick
to tell you
that it's just as good
a brick
while it's kicking about
on the ground
by itself
as it would be
as part of a house.
Actually,
by itself,
it's a good for nothing brick.
This is what Spurgeon says.
He's saying,
a detached Christian,
like a detached foot,
is not living
according to the purpose
that God has saved you for.
You're living in disobedience
and the house without you,
the body without you,
investing and contributing,
will suffer
just as you will spiritually
if you're not engaged
with a local church body.
Verse 18 says,
God has arranged you here.
You get that?
God has arranged you here.
What that means is
you matter in the body.
Just say that.
I matter.
Just say that again.
I matter.
Yeah,
you count
in the body of Christ
because he's building something
and he's called you
to be part of his body.
You know,
we live in a society
that values independence.
You know,
it says like,
basically,
my identity
is built of juggling
a whole load of different
things in my life.
So,
I'm a husband,
I'm a father,
I'm a brother,
I'm a son,
I'm an employee,
I'm a church member.
And so,
we're kind of juggling
all of these things
in our lives.
And you know,
when life gets busy,
you've got to drop
one of the balls.
And sometimes,
what we do is we kind of,
okay,
the church one,
we're just going to drop
a little bit.
But if you see
that you belong
as part of this,
even if you can't
make a meeting
because things are crazy,
you'll find other ways
to think,
how do I express
being part
of this local body?
Don't underplay
God's design
in having you here
for however long
he has placed you here.
And if this is the church
that you feel
God has called you to be,
then God says,
I have placed you here
not to be detached
but to plug in.
You matter.
What that also means
is this.
It's not just
belonging here
means you are valuable,
but it also means
that we have responsibility
towards each other.
Do you know
the Bible has over
50 one another's statements?
Love one another,
carry one another's burdens,
forgive one another,
a whole load
of different things.
And yet,
those one another's
are not just about
kind of serving
occasionally,
although that's great.
In verse 25
in the passage,
which I didn't read there,
it says,
you've got to care
for one another
as a family,
as a body
who's responsible
for one another.
You know,
that's how we flourish
together.
Do you know
the difference
between being
a babysitter
or just leading
in the kids ministry
and being a parent?
Okay?
What's the difference?
You know,
I've done babysitting before.
I've done kids ministry
before.
You know,
you do your task,
you play with the kids,
you do whatever,
you teach them,
and then,
and you kind of hope
they just don't kill each other
or anything like that,
and then at the end of the day,
you just kind of hand them back,
and then your job's done,
and then you,
and then usually what you do
is you just complain
about the parents
of like,
hey,
shouldn't they have brought up
their kids a bit better
because it was such a nightmare
for me doing that?
And that's how you do it.
But if you're the parent,
you have responsibility,
and I've talked to many of you
as new parents,
there's this just incredible joy
when you have a new child,
but also a credible sense of,
wow,
I'm responsible for this.
And now that child,
you view very differently
than if I'm just the babysitter,
right?
They're your family.
You have a responsibility.
And so,
in the same way Paul is talking about here,
the way that we see each other,
if you see yourself so interconnected,
is we belong,
and therefore we're responsible
for each other,
which means things like,
if you lead a CG,
I mean,
just here's an example.
I don't know if you've ever
led a Bible study in a CG,
or if you've actually just turned up
to your CG,
your community group.
The difference is often,
the amount of prayer
that you pray
when you're actually leading the study
compared to if you just turn up
is quite considerable.
You know,
if you just turn up
on a Sunday morning
and it's just kind of,
hey,
whatever,
and if you're preaching,
the amount of prayer
and the amount of thought
that you're talking about it
is different,
right?
If you see yourself
as a member of the body
with responsibility
to each other,
then when you come on a Sunday,
how much are you praying
for our time together?
Not just,
oh,
I hope I hear a good sermon.
Or when you meet
to the community group
and are you praying
that God would be there,
present,
because you see
it's us together,
it's not just one or two people
who's doing everything
and I'm just gonna turn up.
Do you see that?
That's what members see.
We belong,
we're responsible,
we all matter in this.
If someone doesn't show up
in your CG
for five weeks
or in the service,
a fan will say,
oh,
it's a shame,
haven't seen them for a while.
A family member will say,
hey,
let me give them a ring,
let me see how they're doing.
Do you see the difference?
That's what membership is about.
It's about commitment,
it's about belonging,
thirdly,
it's about accountability.
There's another verse
on your sheet,
which we didn't read,
but I'd like to just
read it to you now.
Hebrews 3,
verse 12.
Again,
this is written
to a local church.
He says,
take care,
brothers,
lest there be in any of you
an evil,
unbelieving heart
leading you to fall away
from the living God.
But exhort one another
every day
as long as it's called today,
that none of you
may be hardened
by the deceitfulness
of sin.
Did you get that?
Exhort one another
every day
as long as it's called today.
You know,
the context
that this is written in
is a local church
where things have been tough
around them
and some of the Christians
are looking around
at the society
and they're saying,
maybe it would be easier
for us if we kind of
became Jews
rather than just
stayed as Christians
because Jews get an easier
ride in society
and there's this temptation
for them
to kind of go easy
on the Jesus stuff
and just fit in
with the crowd.
And the author
of Hebrews
is saying to them,
guys,
you need to help
each other with this.
Like,
does anyone ever feel
that pressure
at work,
the pressure
and family
to just
dumb down
your relationship
with Jesus?
Anyone feel that?
Because this passage
says sin
is deceitful.
It can twist you.
It creeps up on you
like a persuasive salesman
trying to sell you
a handbag
or a new drone
and you can't afford it
but before you know it,
you've,
you're taken.
You're in.
And the author
of Hebrews says,
listen,
that responsibility
for each other
means you are going
to exhort each other
to come back to Jesus.
What that means is,
exhort means urge,
implore,
encourage,
say,
hey,
I'm with you,
come on,
let's run this race together.
That's what it means.
In Watermark,
our community groups
are really where
we want to encourage
that to take place.
Because I don't know
about you,
but I'm always tempted,
you know,
prone to wander,
prone to wander.
Anyone else prone to wander?
Graham is.
Good,
this one.
All the rest of you,
I need you to talk to me.
But you see,
that's,
that's what we're like
as a community.
Because,
you know,
the number one thing
that turns non-Christians
off Christians
and off Christianity
is actually Christians.
You know?
Christians who say,
hey,
I go to church,
I do all these things,
but then,
actually,
all through the week,
they're living a life
which has no bearing
on how the gospel
is changing them.
And the thing that people
keep telling me again and again,
oh,
Christians,
you're just hypocrites.
And you know,
yes,
we are all here,
everyone is a hypocrite,
actually,
but I don't want to be
pursuing hypocrisy,
I want you to help me
to live faithfully.
And so,
your responsibility,
my responsibility
as a member,
that's why we encourage you
to get into community groups,
is that you'll be
helping each other,
engage in each other's life,
so that we are not hypocrites,
but we are people
who honor Jesus
in the way that we live.
And when we mess up,
we're just calling each other
back to the grace
and the mercy
and the kindness of Jesus,
and helping each other
on that road.
Are we up for that?
Are you up for that?
That's what accountability means,
but it means something
also more than that.
And here's the thing
which is a little culturally,
you know,
we struggle with.
Throughout Scripture,
it tells us
that actually part of this process
of discipleship
is church discipline.
Same word,
disciple discipline.
I don't like the word discipline
because it reminds me
of harsh punishment.
It reminds me
of when I was at school,
we used to have
corporal punishment,
you know,
where they hit you
with a cane.
I just avoided it
and got my friend in trouble
because I just got to stay
in the corridor.
I was kicking a stone
in the playground.
And my friend,
I heard him getting beaten,
and I was just standing
in the corridor.
And that's my impression
of what discipline is.
It's the kind of punishment
that I want to avoid.
And yet,
that's not what the Bible
calls discipline.
This says,
discipline is about discipleship.
It's what Hebrews
is talking about.
And Jesus talks about it
in the same way.
He says,
Matthew 18.
He says,
when,
if a brother sins against you,
and go and tell him his fault,
go and sort it out together.
If there's issues of sin,
don't just leave them,
sort them out.
And he says,
if he doesn't listen to you,
take two or three others with you.
And so it's not a kind of
he said,
she said kind of thing.
No,
like,
do it as a community.
And then,
if they still won't listen to that,
tell it to the church.
And then if he still won't listen
to the church,
he says,
treat them as a Gentile
and a tax collector.
This is hard,
but this is Jesus talking.
What he says is this.
Sin is serious,
but discipline is not about punishment.
Discipline is about bringing us back to Jesus.
It's about helping us to win each other over
so we're not going to be hypocrites
in the world around us.
And he says,
sin is deceitful,
so therefore,
as a church,
we need to be praying for each other.
We need to be calling those who we see
going astray,
calling them back.
This is part of what it means
to be a member.
At a previous church,
there were a couple.
They were living together.
They were sleeping together.
But they said,
hey,
we're Bible-believing Christians.
We love Jesus.
But they refused to get married
because they just said,
okay,
marriage is just signing a piece of paper.
That's what they said.
We love each other.
That's all that's necessary.
What do you do in that situation?
If you're a member,
if you're an elder,
what do you do?
You know,
do you say,
well,
marriage is just a human institution.
It doesn't really matter
as long as they love each other.