Today the Elders and I are introducing to you a proposed Cedar Street Baptism and Membership Covenant for our congregation. What this is really about is understanding and remembering who we are, what we are about, and what binds us together as God’s people.
Since we’re introducing this, I thought I would share with you this morning on the theme of “God’s People” and highlight portions of the Covenant in the process.
First of all . . .
God calls us to be a part of his people
God’s purpose has always been to form a community, not just save individuals; to have a community of the redeemed.
Our culture is so individualistic that we sometimes reduce our faith down simply to a personal relationship with God. When, in fact, it is that, as well as being a part of God’s new people; being in God’s covenant community.
We know this was true in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 7:6 Moses said to Israel, “The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
In Isaiah 43:20-21 the Lord speaks of “my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.”
That this is still true is evident in 1 Peter 2:9 which refers back to these two verses (and others) and applies them to Christians. It says, “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.” Notice the same themes – a chosen people; a people of his own or treasured possession.
God seeks for a people who will follow after him; a community that is his own; that will proclaim his praise to the world.
And so sisters and brothers, those who are God’s are to be a part of God’s people.
- This is certainly a part of what baptism is about. When we are baptized, we become of our own mature choice, a part of God’s people. As Acts 2:41 says, those who were baptized were added to the church body in Jerusalem.
- And we are to continue to be a part of God’s people, active, engaged, fully committed and participating throughout our lives. As Hebrews 10:25 says, we are not to neglect “to meet together, as is the habit of some.”
We are to be a part of God’s people. This brings us to the question . . .
What does it mean to be a part of God’s people?
1) It means that we confess our faith in Jesus. Matthew 16:15-18 records this conversation. Jesus said to his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! . . .. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church . . ..”
Jesus is saying – it is on the foundation of this apostolic confession of him as Savior that God’s people is built.
And so to be a part of God’s people means that: We confess our faith in Jesus as our Savior.
[The covenant we are proposing calls us to this in the first section on confession under questions 1, 3, and 6.]
A second aspect of what it means to be a part of God’s people is that . . .
2) We confess our experience of salvation. In Acts 2:38 Peter said to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Here on this day, when the church was fully formed by the coming of the Spirit, what does Peter tell the crowd to do, which leads to their being a part of God’s people? He points to several spiritual experiences:
- He speaks of repentance; a change of heart; sorrow for our wrong deeds, which comes from God working in us.
- He speaks of the forgiveness of our sins; of experiencing God’s mercy and release from our sins, our guilt and our shame.
- He speaks of receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit; of having God’s Spirit come into our heart and give us new life and power.
So to be a part of God’s people means that: We confess that we have experienced God’s salvation in our lives.
[Again, the covenant, in section one, calls us to confess this in questions 2, 4 and 5. And just as Peter also notes in Acts 2 we acknowledge that we are willing to be baptized as a testimony to this inward spiritual transformation in question 7.]
Finally, with regard to what it means to be a part of God’s people, the fruit of our faith in Jesus and the salvation he gives us is found in new kind of life . . .
3) We commit to love God and others from now on. Matthew 22:36-40 recounts a discussion of what God wants from us as his people. Someone asked Jesus, “’Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’”
All that God wants; God’s will for his people is summed up in these two commands to love.
So to be a part of God’s people means that: We commit to love God and others.
Now, love of God and others is not just a warm fuzzy feeling, an emotion, or an inner intention:
- To love God means to obey God – I John 5:3. This verse says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.”
- To love others is to act in practical ways to help them, as Jesus teaches in Luke 10:30-37 in the parable of the good Samaritan.
[The covenant we are proposing calls us to this kind of love of God and others in the second section on commitments. There are two sections on love of God and three sections on loving others.]
Alright, we have looked at how God wants us to be a part of his people, and what this means: confessing our faith in Jesus, confessing our experience of salvation and committing to love God and others. Let me end by saying that . .
It is a blessing to be a part of God’s people
Oh its true, since we are all human and weak and fail, we will experience problems. If you have been a part of any church (there is no perfect church) for long enough:
- you will be involved in misunderstandings and conflict
- you will see pride, hypocrisy, thoughtlessness, gossip and sometimes downright meanness
- you will see the full range of human sin
And it will cause disappointment for sure. We don’t always live up to the ideals that are in the Scriptures and that we have attempted to spell out in the covenant.
But let me say, that God is also here among us, and in the midst of his people throughout the world. God’s Spirit is at work in our midst to bless us.
And God helps us to move beyond our fleshly human weakness, and to turn away from our self-centeredness and our pride. God does his work in us and we see the fruit:
- when we walk with each other through hard times with encouragement and support
- when we struggle hard to work through conflicts and seek peace with each other
- when God uses us to minister to each others’ needs
- when we love each other deeply from the heart and sacrifice for each other
This is God at work.
We are blessed to be a part of God’s people – to have fellowship, community, common experiences, bonds of love, commitment to each other and our shared goals, and the strengthening that all this gives – which we wouldn’t have if we just isolate off by ourselves.
God calls us to be a part and he does so for our own good.
William Higgins
