First Baptist Church
August 9, 2026

      • John 3.4-6ESV

      • John 3.7-8ESV

  • Blessed Assurance
  • Come Ye Sinners Poor And Needy
  • He Will Hold Me Fast

      • 1 Corinthians 12:12–14ESV

  • His Glory And My Good
  • We are returning once again to our 5 week study on the matters of Membership. Last week, we talked about and celebrated the act of baptism.… where membership begins. It was certainly a day filled with excitement and joy, as it should be. But when we talk about membership, far fewer people are as thrilled about it simply because membership is less understood, less appreciated, and a less concerning thing for many people. They see far less value and meaning behind membership. What’s the point of it?
    Research from Ligioner ministries confirms this. It revealed that while many “Christians” are willing to “attend” a church, only 39% of “Christians” in America believe that a Christian should join a local church.” Less than half of all “professing Christians” believe in the need to be a member of a church. Why is that the case?
    It’s quite possible that they see church membership the same way they see membership played out in society. So they see church membership much in the same way they see a club, or a voluntary organization, or even as a service provider… like a gym membership, benefits there but ultimately no requirements. Come and go as you please and enjoy what you want. And that’s the extent of understanding people have on church membership.
    Perhaps that’s not it, but rather some see church membership as restrictive. Perhaps people have come from churches that don’t put much weight or concern on church membership, so to hear a church putting value and importance on membership can kinda sound legalistic, daunting, or even exclusive, much like a cult… and those things are pretty off-putting.
    Others living in our very individualized age have a major distrust for any structural authority. This distrust causes them to push against the idea of a formal church membership that one is to be committed to. Too many bad examples out there that people have seen or been a part of would tell them that there is no way that they are getting tangled up in something like let. Common things people in this camp might say are this… “The Bible I believe, or Jesus I love, it’s the church that I have a problem with.” That’s pretty typical.
    But overall, the one of the biggest issues that most people have with church membership comes from their belief that the Bible never addresses church membership so why should we give ourselves to something that is made up.
    If we are to say that church membership is important, and that it’s critical for the health and well being of Christians as well as something that we should celebrate, we must start by proving from scripture that church membership is indeed Biblical. The critics of the anti-membership opinion are correct, that church membership is never once mentioned in the Bible. You won’t find those exact words anywhere in it’s pages. But the idea, concepts, the framework is literally everywhere throughout the whole New Testament, you just have to look for it in the right way. It’s not a hidden concept, just need to look at it with understanding eyes.
    This is a massive topic and I won’t have time to get into all the various levels of it. But I do hope to impress upon you a few major thoughts on the topic of Church Membership and hopefully through our time in various texts, you will come to see that Church Membership indeed is a very Biblical concept.
    So where do we see church membership?

    I. Evidenced in the Nature of the Church

    To see where church membership is found we should start by looking at what it even means to be a church. Understanding this, we begin to see a clearer picture of church membership form.

    A. What is the Church? (The Definition)

    Matt. 16:18-19, 1 Peter 2:9
    Turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 16 verse 18 where the church is mentioned for the very first time. Jesus has been traveling and ministry to all sorts of people demonstrating thru signs and wonders and thru preaching that He is indeed the Messiah. In Matt. 16, well into his ministry, Jesus has confronted the beliefs of the crowds and the religious leaders, now Jesus seeks to ask his own disciples a similiar question to test their level of faith. He knew the answer, but He wanted them to see how committed they were to it. Peter by the unmerited grace of God “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” answered correctly. You are the Christ. From that statement, Christ articulate that He will no longer allow this false religious leaders to carry His truth forward, but that he would entrust it to different leaders, who would start a new group of people, a people that Christ would call the church.
    Matthew 16:18 ESV
    And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
    Here with the correct confession of faith, Christ reveals His intended plan. He reveals that He will use Peter and the other apostles to build “a church” that will set it’s foundation as Jesus the Messiah. Now if we read our modern understanding of church into this text we miss it. Jesus was not instructing Peter to build a church building… no He was instructing Him to build something else.
    The word church in the origin language is the word Ekklesia. Ek meaning out and kaleo meaning to call… put these words together and you get the meaning… called out ones or a gathered together group. Greeks used this word to refer to a group of citizens who were called out to discuss affairs of the state. Thus Jesus was telling Peter and His disciples that thru them, He would form a group of people who are together called out.
    But what are they called out from?
    1 Peter 2:9 ESV
    But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
    The church is a group of people who have been called out of darkness. Another very simple way we could say this is that the church is a group of born again believers, separate from those still living in darkness, sin, and deceit.
    But how do we know who’s part of the called out ones. That’s where verse 19 comes into play.
    Peter had rightly confessed who Jesus was, and Jesus said that Peter’s right answer came from the Father in heaven. Though Jesus was still on earth, he spoke on behalf of heaven. He is the word made flesh as we recall. Then in the very next breath, he authorized Peter to do the same thing- to represent what’s bound and loosed in heaven by binding and loosing on earth!
    Matthew 16:19 ESV
    I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
    Peter has no power or authority to save anyone. He can’t do that. Jesus is not saying to Peter that you are to go save people. Only Christ’s shed blood on the cross thru faith and repentance on the part of sinner can grant salvation and eternal life. But the church is responsible for affirming that the confession of faith on the part of the sinner is true. That’s what he’s saying here. That’ part of the significance of baptism. You identify with Jesus and with His church, while the church at the same time identifies you as a child of God thru your confession. No one can legitimately baptize themselves. You are baptized by another. This baptism by another is part of the protection that God sets up to keep His church from receiving people who have not actually been called out. Therefore, to be part of the ekklesia, God desires that His people vet out who is true and who is false. They have the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” not to give you salvation but to affirm your salvation in Christ and thus by extension protect Christ’s bride the church from impurity, counterfeit believers, imposters, and the like.
    Like an embassy...
    By very nature, to be a Christian, is to be a member of Christ’s church, His called out ones. But that may not be a problem for most people. They still don’t see enough evidence from this to support local church membership, just being part of God’s grander kingdom, loosely connected to it’s other residence.
    That’s what we will discuss next, where this confusion lies.

    B. Where is it seen? (The Distinctions)

    Because Christ created and authorized the church and it was his plan moving forward to use the church then it should be obvious to us that when we read the New Testament, we see the church talked about everywhere through it’s records and writings.
    But where is the church?
    If you were asked where the Japanese or the Brazilians are, you would probably say Japan or Brazil. Right, that’s obvious. But as you look at the where the church is seen, if you are looking for one single place where all the christians are gathered, you would notice very quickly that they are not. It is not in the same way we see kingdoms and nations and dividing lines. You can’t look at it like a map and say this is the region of the christians. And that shouldn’t surprise us because the church is a people as the Bible says made up of every tribe, every tongue, and every nation. The church is shall we say global because Christ intended to save people from all over the world.
    Revelation 5:9 ESV
    And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,
    This is what theologians call the...

    -Invisible Church (Universal)

    Rev. 5:9, 7:9-10, Matt. 28:19
    Invisible because they are made of people all around the world. There is no physical earthly kingdom. No single geographical location. No single gathering on one people. But they are everywhere and they are united into Him and to each other.
    And yet, can we think of a problem perhaps that this might make for the apostles and the church. How are the apostles and the church to affirm those who are apart of it if it’s only an invisible people, not actually a gathered assembling.
    But the scriptures actually indicate that there were gatherings of christians. Assemblies of believers. This theologians call the visible church or the local church. Rather than God’s Church, His kingdom being all encompassed in one place… His universal church is made up of thousands and thousands of smaller gatherings of local churches that affirm and guard the confessions of faith from people all around the world. We can clearly see that in the New Testament.

    -Visible Church (Local)

    Acts 14:23, Eph 4:16, Heb 10:24-25
    When scripture talks about the church, its important to note the majority of the texts of scripture deal with the local church rather than the universal church. The book of Acts gives us the founding and history of several local churches. Jerusalem, Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe.… and on and on and on we could go. In fact, much of the New Testament was written specifically to local churches. Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians.… etc.
    When Paul and Barnabas went to various places to spread the gospel, they didn’t tell everyone to move back to Jerusalem upon receiving Christ as Savior, nor did they tell them to follow them everywhere to be a roaming group of believers. Instead, these groups of people that believed came together and formed a group of people called the local church. This wasn’t just a Bible study of a few believers either, it was a structured group.
    Acts 14:23 ESV
    And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
    Doesn’t the fact of Paul addressing local churches so numerously seem to imply something significant. If you were a christian living in that day, where would you need to go to receive Biblical instruction and growth? A local church because Paul wrote to local churches. He rarely ever wrote to individuals, but even when he did, it was always those within local church practices. Consider his letters to Timothy and Titus, they were serving in local churches as Pastors. Or consider even Philemon, he was connected to a church that formally met in his home.
    Today, we live in a world where you could listen to a preacher from another country and be blessed and encouraged by it. But some do this as their means of “Church” and they call this person they listen to, whom they’ve never met in person, their pastor and their people. That concept is extremely foreign to the scriptures. How could Pastors or Shepherds legitimately do there biblically required jobs if this were the case. Answer: they couldn’t… nor could God’s people. When God set up the church, he intended people to be part of a local church…
    This lone-ranger concept is absolutely a lie that people believe, and they believe it at the cost of their own spiritual life. You must be with God’s people even if they aren’t perfect, you need each other…
    That me drive this point home further.… you will never find a single example anywhere in all of the New Testament of a man or woman thriving in their spiritual life apart from having a close relationship to his or her local church. It doesn’t exist. What does exist is example after example, command after command of people who engage with and are committed to the local church thrive in their walk with Christ.
    Ephesians 4:16 ESV
    from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
    Hebrews 10:24–25 ESV
    And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
    God designed the local church. His divine and inspired Word, the Bible, repeatedly focuses upon it. He desires that all His glorious work be accomplished thru it. Who are we to say we don’t need it!!!!
    And that goes for everyone of us that treat our church group so casually.… as if we could take it or leave. WE NEED THE CHURCH AND THE CHURCH NEEDS US!
    And that is clearly seen in what we will look at next.…

    C. How is it talked about? (The Descriptions)

    -Body of Christ

    Rom 12:4-5, 1 Cor 12, Eph 1:22-23, Col 1:18
    The most frequent and common description used of the church is the description of the Body of Christ. Romans 12:4-5, 1 Corinthians 12:27, Ephesians 1:22-23, Colossians 1:18 all mention this truth. There’s alot we can learn about the church from this scriptural analogy. Consider this truth from 1 Corinthians 12:21-22
    1 Corinthians 12:21–22 ESV
    The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,
    The Bible itself points us to the importance of every member doing its part. Ministry therefore is not just the job of one person (like the pastor). Rather, it is the ministry of the entire body! An every-member ministry. If I just stopped using one of my limbs altogether, do you think it would have effect on my entire body. What if I just no longer used my eyes, or stomach, or you name it. No matter who you are the Bible requires you to be an active, participating member of the body. Your selfishness not to be engaged because your too busy or too uninterested actually is part of the cause that the church, the body of Christ is unhealthy.
    But we can flip it around to.
    This imagery doesn’t make sense if we are purely talking about the universal church. It’s written to a local church for local church participation.
    Put it like this,
    “A christian without a local church is like a hand without a body. You need the local church!”

    -Family of God

    1 Tim 3:15, 1 John 3:1, John 1:12
    The church is called the household of God (1 Timothy 3:15).
    1 Timothy 3:15 ESV
    if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
    In fact, it a blessing beyond words. We are creatures made by a powerful God. We are servants of a great Master. We are subjects of a majestic King. But how incredible it is that in Christ we are made to be sons of God and part of His family.
    1 John 3:1 ESV
    See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
    John’s astounded by this truth, and we should be too. But being a family means something.
    Every family knows who lives in their house. The neighbor’s kids might join us for dinner, fellow members might have our kids over for a sleepover, but they are not members of their household and because of that, they don’t share the same unique obligations to one another that they clearly would with their family.
    The church is God’s redeemed household, and all throughout the New Testament there is a clear understanding expected locally of who lives in the house.
    Pastors are to shepherd the flock of God that is among them (1 Peter 5:2), keeping watch over and giving an account for their souls in particular (Hebrews 13:7)
    Saints are to do good to all, especially those “of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10), which requires discerning between “outsiders” and those who are “inside the church” (1 Corinthians 5:12)
    Unbelievers can know Christians are disciples of Jesus in part by how they treat one another (John 13:35)
    Without formal church membership, everyone remains a kid on the street. Church membership is the way the invisible, universal household of God becomes visible locally by clearly identifying to pastors, members, and the world who belongs to the family.
    “A Christian without a local church is like an orphan with out a family. You need the local church!”

    -Flock of the Good Shepherd

    Acts 20:28-31
    The church is the flock of God (Acts 20:28-31). Church membership is a means through which our Good Shepherd protects his flock. Church membership is a vital protection from wolves within and false teachers without.
    Acts 20:28–30 ESV
    Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.
    Sheep outside the flock are easy targets for prey to pick off and lead astray, but sheep within the fold are guarded by watchful shepherds who preach the Gospel, defend sound doctrine, and shut the mouths of wolves (Titus 1:11).
    Furthermore, other sheep protect the flock by sharing this responsibility. They are to rebuke sin, exhort one another daily, call another to repentance in love just as the shepherd is to do. Matthew 18 is a prime example of that. Speaking on the responsibility of church disciple… it is not just the pastor, it is members of the church who are to confront the offense, desiring that they may turn from it.
    This analogy of the flock further helps us see a local church involvement and membership.
    With church membership this essential means of God’s protection and assurance of his flock is removed.
    “A Christian without a local church is like a sheep without a flock or shepherd. You need the local church.”

    -Pillar and Buttress of the Truth

    1 Tim 3:15, 1 Cor 3:9
    1 Timothy 3:15 ESV
    if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
    Our local churches hold up the truth of the Gospel in the world. One brick makes a pretty weak pillar that is sure to collapse. But when many saints uphold a shared confession of faith, that church becomes a mighty pillar and buttress of the truth in their community. Without the shared profession of faith membership expresses, the truth is not made visible. Through local church membership God calls Christians together to receive, hold fast to, and deliver the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1–3), plant new churches, and fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God until Christ returns.
    “A Christian without a local church is like a brick without a building. You need the local church.”
    Here’s what’s most crucial in all of these. For those that say I love Jesus, but don’t want the church. For the growing movement that look at spirituality as good but organized religion as bad. Who see the church as oppressive, irrelevant, and a waste of time… consider this Jesus attaches Himself to everyone one of these analogies.
    The church is the house of God, where Jesus Christ is the Cornerstone.
    The church is the flock of God, where Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd.
    The church is the body of Christ, where Jesus is the Head.
    The church is the pillar and buttress of the Truth where Jesus is the Truth and Faithful Witness
    “Jesus Christ is the foundation of the church. But it should be should be obvious that no one lays a foundation unless he plans to build upon it. No drives past a cement foundation in the dirt and things, “looks like they’re about to move in.” We know that a foundation exists to be built upon, not lived in all by itself. Who wants to live in a basement without the rest of the house on top? No one I know, except Christians who want Jesus but not the church.” - Kevin D. Young… Why I love local church.
    Conclusion:
    As we come to the end of our study today, I hope that by looking at the very nature of the church… the definition, the distinctions, and the descriptions of it… you started to see a clearer picture of church membership form. Where people are committed to the Lord and to His people. God’s has no desire for you to live your life alone, but He wants you actively involved with and participating in a local church. Now some, may have heard all of what has been said and are still not convinced that I need to become an “official” church member and go thru classes and sign papers etc, etc. You would say I believe all that and I am doing all that as a non-member. I’m committed to this church and am active in this church. Why do I still need to be a member? Where is that actually found. Well, next week we go even deeper to see that not only the concepts of being involved together are there in scriptures but that there seems to be plenty of evidence of how the first century church actual had a record of who has apart of it’s official membership. We look forward to that next week.
    But as for today, scripture is not merely an intellectual tool for our brains, but a spiritual weapon for our hearts. It’s purpose isn’t merely to help us become smartly but to also make us more like Christ. As we examined these texts and thoughts, here are things that we should walk away with and be challenged to grow in by way of application questions:
    Application Questions:
    1 - If the church is described as the “called out ones”, how much different are we than those we meet outside these walls. If someone were to come into our church today or see us on the streets, would they be able to actually see significant difference in us than in them?
    2 - If the New Testament puts so much focus on the local church, how should that affect the way we view our local church? Is it merely a commodity or is it indeed our life supply? And if it is indeed believed to be our life supply, how much of a priority does it have in our lives?
    3 - If the church is described as a body, a family, flock, and a building, how important are you to the church? Are you contributing the way the scriptures tells you to? Are you giving it your best or are you putting forward minimal effort?

        • Matthew 16:18ESV

        • 1 Peter 2:9ESV

        • Matthew 16:19ESV

        • Revelation 5:9ESV

        • Acts 14:23ESV

        • Ephesians 4:16ESV

        • Hebrews 10:24–25ESV

        • 1 Corinthians 12:21–22ESV

        • 1 Timothy 3:15ESV

        • 1 John 3:1ESV

        • Acts 20:28–30ESV

        • 1 Timothy 3:15ESV

        • Wonderful Words Of Life (Words Of Life Wonderful Words)
        First Baptist Church
        howardcitybaptist@gmail.com
        2319374809
        https://fbcohc-howard-city.faithlifesites.com
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