In or out: What is Membership?

IN OR OUT:  WHAT IS MEMBERSHIP?

Ndani au Nje:Ushirika ni nini?

There is a youth chorus we used to sing years ago: “Tell me whose side your standing on?” It is still a sober question to ask yourself. The answer was "Standing on the Lord's side!"

In our earlier discipleship lessons, called the Masomo ya Msingi gives a story of different disciplined forces to draw a picture of the importance of baptism.  If one is trained in the Police Service he/she must wear their police uniform and not of another force, even if he loved the Army uniform!

Baptism: A Public Affirmation

Ubatizo:Hakikisho Hadharani

Church membership is a public pronouncement of someone’s public profession of faith in Christ. Jesus has appointed baptism as the means by which his followers publicly profess their faith in him. A church may not confirm someone in their number who has not professed their faith in Christ.

Baptism is how a believer publicly identifies with Jesus and with his people

Acts 2:38–41 “Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, be saved from this perverse generation.” Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.”

It’s how you clearly indicate that you are united to Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.  

Rom. 6:1–4 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

It’s how you are identified before the church and the world as one who belongs to the Triune God.

Matt. 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

Baptism is where your faith and my faith goes public. It’s how you show your colors to the world that you are Jesus’s disciple.

Gor Mahia fans wear Green T-Shirts and Read hats.  You see that and even someone telling you you know.

Baptism is like a Football team T-Shirt that shows you’re now playing for Jesus’s team.  A church publicly identifies itself only with those who have publicly identified with Jesus in baptism.

We do not see evidence in the Bible of infant baptism.  Those who were “baptized” as infants need to be baptized - for the first time - as believers.

Baptism: Binds One to Many

Ubatizo: Kuunganisha mmoja na wengi.

Baptism is a church’s act of affirming a believer and making a presentation of that believer’s union with Christ.  Baptism is not part of salvation! It isn’t a separate requirement for church membership in addition to a profession of faith; it is a public testimony of faith.

Baptism is how a Christian publicly owns Christ and the church as his or her own, and how Christ and the church publicly own a Christian as their own. A believer at baptism commits him or herself to Christ and his people.

Jesus has not given the church authority to affirm the professions of those who haven’t publicly professed faith in him.

If you went to Nakumatt and refuse to your PIN for your Idebit card, then the Supermarket is not authorized to charge your card and give you your groceries. Even if you have the money in your bank account! You’ve got to key in your PIN!

Also, when at an airport, if you refuse to identify yourself as a passenger by producing a boarding pass, the gate attendant will not allow you in the plane. Even if you paid for a ticket!

Let me say this as a disclaimer though, that baptism isn’t sufficient criteria by which the church is to recognize Christians, BUT IT IS A NECESSARY ONE. It’s not enough for someone to claim to be a Christian or for everyone in the church to think someone is a Christian; JESUS HAS BOUND THE CHURCH’S JUDGMENT TO BAPTISM.

Baptism: A Church’s Act

Ubatizo: Tendo La Kanisa

Baptism is something Jesus requires the church to do, not just individual Christians: an individual gets baptized, but the church baptizes.

Matthew 28:19,20; 16:18,19; 18:15-20

-       The key to the kingdom are exercised in the Church’s act of affirming some or rejecting some.

-       The Church is authorized, in a special sense to speak and act in Jesus’ name.

-       The Church affirms someone as a believer in Jesus by baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

Baptism: A Church’s Practice
Ubatizo: Mazoea Ya Kanisa

Baptism isn’t just a doctrine; it’s a practice. Along with the Lord’s Supper, baptism actually gives shape and structure, form and order, to the local church. You can’t make “Christians” into “church” without baptism and the Lord’s Supper. As we have said in an earlier point Baptism binds one to many while the Lord’s Supper makes many one. It is for the unity of the Church. Baptism on the other hand accomplishes something essential for the existence of the local church.

In Closing

Church membership is a self-conscious commitment between a Christian (you and I) and a Church in which a church affirms and cares for the Christian, and the Christian submits to and cares for the Church.

An Inside and an Outside
Kuna Ndani na Nje

The Church has an inside and an outside.  The Church knows who is in and who is out.
Being in means being subject to the church oversight and authority.

1 Corinthians 5:10-12; Matthew 18:15-17

Metaphors for The Church
Mifano katika kanisa

The Church is portrayed as having believers who are knit together, stuck together, intertwined with each other.

1 Timothy 3:15 - members of the house of God

Ephesians 2:21,22 – stones in God’s dwelling place

1 Corinthians 12:12-26 – members of the body of Christ

Ephesians 4:15-16

 “but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

We should live together as believers, having a commitment to a body of believers…

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