Real Life Community Church Richmond, KY

Church Membership, Covenant, and Commitment | Dr. Jack Buskey

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At Real Life Community Church, we believe the Church is God’s design to carry on the ministry of Jesus. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus declared, “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overpower it.”

The Church is essential—it proclaims the Gospel, disciples believers, and ministers to the community. While all believers are part of the invisible, spiritual Church through salvation, God also calls us into covenant with a visible, local church family.

Membership matters because it reflects commitment, accountability, and shared mission. As followers of Christ, we are invited to not only believe, but also to belong. 


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SPEAKER_00:

Um listen, this morning we've got a special treat for you. Uh Dr. Jack Muskie, uh beloved member of this church, but also extremely experienced pastor, uh, has done some, the Lord used him to do some great things. And uh he's gonna he's gonna step outside of our Acts study today, and he's gonna talk about church membership. And if you've not heard him preach, you are in for an absolute priest. And God willing, uh, I'll be back next week and we will uh continue in our study uh through the book of Acts. But can we just welcome Jack this morning?

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, stand for the reading of the word. Reading from Matthew 16 verses 13 to 19. Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philip, he asked his disciples, Who do people say the Son of Man is? And they said, Well, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others Jeremiah, one of the prophets. And he said to them, But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, You're the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you find on earth shall be found in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. This is the word of God.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks be to God.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Jerry. I'm going to use for a text this morning those words of Jesus to Peter. And I tell you that you're Peter, and on this rock I'll build my church, and the gates of hell shall not overcome it. When someone says the word church, what comes to mind? I expect with some people it could be a building, you know, I'll beat you at the church. With some, it would be the local congregation here. I doubt if anyone will think of the assemblies of God or the church of God or the Methodist Church or the Baptist Church. They won't think of a denomination. Occasionally, some, particularly Catholics, may think of the universal church. The church is the only institution that Christ established. He came to teach, he prophesied, he ministered to people's needs. Primarily, we've been singing and we celebrate that he came as a savior. But all of this he left in the hands of the church. He established a church to carry on the word of God, his ministry. And I tell you, you're Peter, and on this rock I'll build my church. And the gates of hell will not overpower it. We need to realize that the church is essential. The church gave us a New Testament. The church proclaims the gospel from generation to generation. The church disciples believers. The church engages the community. Ministers of the community, as we heard this morning. And when the Bible talks about the church, in every instance, it's talking about the local church. Whenever we find the church mentioned in the Bible, it's referring to the local church. We read in Acts, they had elders elected for them in every church, and with prayer and fasting they entrusted them to the Lord in whom they believed. In Romans, Paul greets the church that meets in their house. In Hebrews, let us not neglect meeting together as some have the habit of doing. Rather, let us encourage each other and all the more as you see the day approaching. That's referring to a local church in every case. When Paul was on the Isle of Patness in exile, he wrote to the seven churches. Not generally, he wrote to seven local churches. Well, church membership may not be essential, but it's important. There's a difference between what's essential and what's important. Being born again is essential. Now, some may get nervous at this. A second experience of consecrating oneself to the Lord, to follow his will is essential. Jesus said, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Now, over history of the church, and I always get nervous when I talk about the history of the church in prison of my daughter-in-law because she's a history buff and she's always correcting me when it comes to the history of the church. The thing that's embarrassing is when she corrects me, she's right. I admitted it. I mentioned that being born again is essential, but there's a second experience of consecrating oneself to the Lord that is also essential. That's what he was talking about when he said, Not everyone says to me, Lord, Lord, who enter the kingdom of God, but who does his will. And after salvation, there's a point when a person needs to consecrate themselves to the Lord. I was saved in a Baptist church. And I went to Baptist conferences, and in Baptist conferences, they were emphasizing that you must consecrate yourself to the Lord after you're born again. In the holiness movement, they were saying one must be sanctified after they're born again. In the Keswick movement, they talked about receiving the power of God after you're born again. Pentecostals talk about being uh teach about being baptized with the Holy Spirit after you're born again. There is a second experience of consecrating yourself. I've always felt sorry that each of those kind of put a parenthesis around it like that's the whole truth. The Methodists concerning the entire sanctification, the Pentecostals concerning baptism with the Holy Spirit. I don't care what you call it, I believe that whenever a person consecrates themselves to the Lord, they will be filled with the Holy Spirit. It's too bad that we as denominations have put a parenthesis around that and made it exclusive, but it's not. But it is essential. But there's a difference between that which is essential and that which is important. Our pastor emphasizes as he exposes the scripture to us with excellence, week after week, about what is essential. But sometimes it is important to take a hiatus just to look at what is important. There's a difference between what is important and what is essential, and what I'm sharing this morning is not essential, but it's tremendously important. And I'm talking about being a member of the church. Would you believe in the Old Testament the word covenant is mentioned two hundred and seventy times? Now, lest you get impressed with my biblical scholarship, I Googled it.

SPEAKER_00:

That's impressive.

SPEAKER_01:

Two hundred and seventy times in the Old Testament, covenant is mentioned. God is a covenant God. We celebrate communion. What is it? This is the covenant of the new blood which is shed for you. God is a God of a covenant. Marriage is a covenant. There is a difference between the covenant of marriage and a couple that are just living together. Oh, love holds us together. But they have no basic commitment to each other. They can walk away at any time. There's a difference between marriage, the covenant, making a declaration, a legal declaration, than just living together. We read in Revelation twenty-one, two, and I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Paul wrote, For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and his church. Christ and his church. The church is the bride of Christ. My question is, are you in a common law marriage with the bride? Or are you in covenant with the bride? Come on. The church we know is both spiritual and visible. We enter the spiritual church through the new birth. We understand that. But the visible church, upon this rock, I'll build my church. The visible church was the church that Christ established on the rock. I might just mention the fundamental difference between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church isn't all the stuff that we see, the outward form of worship and and all of that. The fundamental difference is right on this scripture. The Catholics believe the church was established upon Peter. They believe in the shed blood. They believe in the crucifixion, the shed blood for our sins. They believe in the power of the resurrection. They believe in all of those basic Christian doctrines. The difference is how do you and I receive his forgiveness and his mercy. Catholics believe you receive it through the sacraments of the church. Protestants believe that he did not found the church on Peter the person, but upon his confession, thou art the Christ. We believe that it's by faith that the church is established by our confession of faith. Catholics believe he established it through a person. They believe you receive his mercy through the sacraments. We believe we receive his mercy through preaching the faith, receiving Christ. So the difference is central in the Catholic Church is the sacrament, the lifting of the house. Central in the Protestant Church is the preaching of the word. So the church is both invisible and it's visible. And in the visible church, one enters it by a covenant of membership. It's more than just attending and supporting, and we're grateful for all of that. But one enters the visible church, formally the bride of Christ, through a covenant. It's a deliberate act and commitment. Does God sanction common law marriage? He sanctions a covenant because he's a covenant covenanting God. One of the illustrations that has always come to mind is the military. During Second World War, when we occupied France, every soldier in the military, drafted or volunteered, has to sign a covenant. He belongs to the army. And if you've been in the army or the armed forces, you know you belong. But when we occupied France, those that were in a covenant, the soldiers, they were under orders. If things got tough and the order came, hold your ground. You held your ground. If you deserted, you were shocked, you were a deserter. But civilians, civilians had no covenant. Civilians could run for cover. Civilians could go any place they wanted to go. Not a soldier. Soldier went where he was sent. He was under orders. But the other issue was I don't ever recall a single soldier or anyone in the armed forces ever starving to death. It may have been K rations, but it was food. You see, when the going got rough and the soldier was saying hold your ground, he had to hold his ground. The civilian had no covenant. The civilian had no responsibility, but the civilian was starving to death. We had pictures of them giving kids and uh chocolate and so forth, and he just grabbed on to it because they hadn't had anything to eat. There was a difference between someone in covenant and a civilian. It's a blessing for the congregation to know who's in covenant. It may not be essential, but it's tremendously important. And you pray I can separate these pages because if I don't, we never get to the conclusion. When a person's born, we know they're part of the invisible church. But it's it may not be essential, but it's tremendously important for people to enter a covenant with the bride of Christ. To be a covenanted member of the visible church. One other illustration that comes to me, it may not be essential for life. If you watch the commercials on the uh taking care of the wounded soldiers, you see soldiers coming back and they've had both of their legs blown off. But they're alive. Our brain is essential for life, our heart is essential for life. New birth is essential for life. Our legs are not essential for life, but they're pretty important. So if you're born again, I urge you to pray about entering a covenant with the church. I ask you to pray about that. It may not be essential for your salvation, but it's important for the church that Jesus established. I say, please don't please don't be in common law relationship with the right of Christ, but enter a covenant. Father, we ask that each one of us that may be good attenders, good supporters, following you in the new birth, but may each one that has not entered that covenant give it prayerful consideration in Jesus' name. Amen.