One of our great goals this year as a pastoral team is to encourage us collectively, corporately, as a body to step off the sideline and into the game.  We want to be encouraging our body here to be participating members of the body of Christ: growing, changing, overflowing, ministering, serving, being edified and edifying members of the local church.  That we would come here on Sunday mornings not just as a bunch of consumers, but that we would come and consume so that we could turn around and contribute. 

The Membership Matters series is really for this purpose: we want to exalt your view of assembling together as God’s people: His bride, the church. We want your love for the church to grow. We want your desire to be a participating member of the local church to grow.

It’s not meant to manipulate you in any way. It’s not meant to be heavy handed in any way.  It’s meant to exalt your view. To call you into the game.

We began this series last week talking about the subject matter of assembly.  Ben preached last week from Hebrews 10 encouraging us “not to neglect meeting together as some are in the habit of doing”. But not only are we not to neglect meeting together, we are “meet together all the more as we see the Day approaching”.  Assembly is very important.  We live in a world today that does not value interdependence. We live in a culture that values independence.  Go your own way. Do your own thing. Forge your own path. But that’s not what the bible presents us with.  The bible tells us that we are one in Christ of many. That we are an individual, but yet we were saved not only to be an individual, but saved to be a part of a collective body.  We ought to be meeting together, encouraging one another, stirring one another up towards love and good deeds. 

That language – “stir one another up” – the original language there, the Greek behind your translation literally means “to agitate one another”.  Not like my 12-year-old son and my 11-year-old daughter agitate one another, but to agitate one another in a positive fruitful way.

Most of you probably have a washing machine at home. You put those clothes in the washing machine along with some laundry detergent. How does that washing machine clean your clothes?  It agitates them.  Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

You cannot obey that very precept unless you are assembling together with God’s people.  You can’t stir one another up towards love and good deeds.  Neither can you be stirred up to love and good deeds if you’re not meeting together regularly, consistently, faithfully with God’s people.  Not only can you not obey that command, but you can’t obey the 35+ one-anothers that come to us in the New Testament.

Encourage one another.

Build one another up.

Pray for one another. 

Carry one another’s burdens.  

Love one another. 

Serve one another.

And on and on and on and on.

You can’t do that if you’re not in close proximity to the body of which you are an integral part if you know Jesus savingly.

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One Another | Each Other Passages

1. Be at peace with each other. (Mark 9:50)

2. Wash one another’s feet. (John 13:14)

3. Love one another. (John 13:34)

4. Love one another. (John 13:34)

5. Love one another. (John 13:35)

6. Love one another. (John 15:12)

7. Love one another. (John 15:17)

8. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. (Romans 12:10)

9. Honor one another above yourselves. (Romans 12:10)

10. Live in harmony with one another. (Romans 12:16)

11. Love one another. (Romans 13:8)

12. Stop passing judgment on one another. (Romans 14:13)

13. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you. (Romans 15:7)

14. Instruct one another. (Romans 15:14)

15. Greet one another with a holy kiss. (Romans 16:16)

16. When you come together to eat, wait for each other. (1 Corinthians 11:33)

17. Have equal concern for each other. (1 Corinthians 12:25)

18. Greet one another with a holy kiss. (1 Corinthians 16:20)

19. Greet one another with a holy kiss. (2 Corinthians 13:12)

20. Serve one another in love. (Galatians 5:13)

21. If you keep on biting and devouring each other…you will be destroyed by each other. (Galatians 5:15)

22. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Galatians 5:26)

23. Carry each other’s burdens. (Galatians 6:2)

24. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. (Ephesians 4:2)

25. Be kind and compassionate to one another. (Ephesians 4:32)

26. Forgiving each other. (Ephesians 4:32)

27. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. (Ephesians 5:19)

28. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21)

29. In humility consider others better than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3)

30. Do not lie to each other. (Colossians 3:9)

31. Bear with each other. (Colossians 3:13)

32. Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. (Colossians 3:13)

33. Teach…[one another] (Colossians 3:16)

34. Admonish one another (Colossians 3:16)

35. Make your love increase and overflow for each other. (1 Thessalonians 3:12)

36. Love each other. (1 Thessalonians 4:9)

37. Encourage each other.1 Thessalonians 4:18)

38. Encourage each other. (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

39. Build each other up. (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

40. Encourage one another daily. Hebrews 3:13)

41. Spur one another on toward love and good deeds. (Hebrews 10:24)

42. Encourage one another. (Hebrews 10:25)

43. Do not slander one another. (James 4:11)

44. Don’t grumble against each other. (James 5:9)

45. Confess your sins to each other. (James 5:16)

46. Pray for each other. (James 5:16)

47. Love one another deeply, from the heart. (1 Peter 3:8)

48. Live in harmony with one another. (1 Peter 3:8)

49. Love each other deeply. (1 Peter 4:8)

50. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. (1 Peter 4:9)

51. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others. (1 Peter 4:10)

52. Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. 1 Peter 5:5)

53. Greet one another with a kiss of love. (1 Peter 5:14)

54. Love one another. (1 John 3:11)

55. Love one another. (1 John 3:23)

56. Love one another. (1 John 4:7)

57. Love one another. (1 John 4:11)

58. Love one another. (1 John 4:12)

59. Love one another. (2 John 5)