I want to begin by reading something about membership that I read in a church magazine:
Why should I bother to become a member of the Church? I come to church services most Sundays, I support the church financially, and go to some of the other activities held in the church. Why bother? I've heard the same kind of questions asked when people are talking about marriage. The couple intend to live together all their lives, they love each other, they are happy together and have worked out a positive relationship towards each other, so why bother getting married? What would your answer be? Surely it has something to do with commitment. I believe in marriage as a commitment between two people far deeper than living together. I believe in church membership as a similar commitment. A commitment to the people of the church, to show your love, care and willingness to work with them. It is an age when more people are living together and yet more and more marriages collapse. It is an age when more and more people are coming to church and yet church membership is in decline. This is the age when people are frightened to commit themselves. Don't you be frightened - join our church family as a member.

Talk to me or one of the elders today if you aren't yet a member.

I want to talk this morning a little bit about that curious phrase in our service "the privileges and responsibilities of church membership". It's a paradox, and it echoes scripture, very neatly reflecting our gospel reading, which is another curious paradox:
'Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.'

Privileges and responsibilities? A strange paradox! I want to suggest to that, paradox that it is, privilege and responsibility is actually a profound truth which is at the root of all Christian discipleship.

This is the privilege and responsibility of church membership. A privilege to know God in our lives and to be assured of his immeasurable love, but a responsibility to make a difference in how we live our lives because of that, to share it with others, and to serve God in the church and the world.

The privilege of the love of God in our lives, but the responsibility of trying to follow that through.

Let me tell you a story to elaborate upon this:
In the days of the Cold War, when the Communists held down Eastern Europe with an iron fist, there was the story of a Hungarian who applied to emigrate to the West.
'Why do you want to emigrate?' they asked him, 'aren't you happy?'
'I've no complaints!' the man replied.
'Are you dissatisfied with your work?'
'I've no complaints,' was the answer.
'Are you discontented with your living conditions?'
'No complaints.'
'Well, for goodness sake, why do you want to emigrate to the West?'
'Well,' he replied, 'because there I am allowed complaints!'

Here in the West we have freedom to complain, among many other freedoms, thank God. But it isn't complete free-dom. Our freedom is constricted by things we take for granted. I may have the freedom to travel to the Bahamas, and spend six months lazing under a palm tree. What a lovely thought! But, in fact, I can't, because I have to work, and my diary won't let me, let alone my wife. I may theoretically have the freedom to go into a car showroom and buy the latest model Jaguar. But in practice I can't, because my bank account won't let me.

My freedom is restricted by my circumstances, and so is yours. We may have every opportunity to walk into a travel agent and book a flight to the Bahamas and there's no law preventing us from ordering a new Jaguar. But we can't, because we're restricted not by outside laws, but by what we are.

This is the paradox, we have freedom to do what we want, but in reality we don't have total freedom, because there are constraints on us. This is the same as the privilege and responsibility of being a Church Member. The privilege of knowing God's love, but the responsibility of acting upon it.

This is a profound biblical theme. In some paradoxical way, God liberates us with his love, he breaks our chains, he sets us free. Surrounded as we are by our nature, our influences, our constrictions, our pressures, God gives us moments of stark open choice. He gives us the freedom to reach higher than we could on our own, to be better people than in our own strength we could achieve. He gives us the liberty to actually get that break in the Bahamas or own that Jaguar - spiritually speaking. The inward chains which have bound us down are broken.

What holds us down so often is ourselves. The burden of our past attitudes and prejudices. The blindness of our lack of sympathy and discernment. The shackles of an inward-turning selfishness. The shadows of guilt for past actions. All these things are restrictions on our freedom; they're our own personal handcuffs, and God can break their tethers and set us free.

This points to the central paradox, the only way God can do this for us is when we give our liberty to him. The only way to keep our freedom is to give it away - to see the finger of Jesus beckoning, to hear his voice saying, 'follow me'. The only way to get perfect freedom is to surrender to him our limited freedom. It means to make his will ours, his purposes ours, his aims our own, his methods our guide, complete surrender of our freedom of action.

And in the mystery of God, in this surrender we find our victory. We are then free to achieve the best, not just the worst. We are free to live the life of the next world, as well as this. We shall then prove in our own experience that God's service is indeed perfect freedom, and we shall know for ourselves that when we find God we find our liberty, and when we lose him we lose that too.

This is the privilege and the responsibility of Church Membership. This you have done today. We rejoice that we have you now as partners in our Christian community. You take upon you the obligations that we share here, and shoulder them, as we all do. You'll find these duties, we hope, a delight. You join a fellowship where we are constantly discovering new avenues of service, experiencing ever more pain and pleasure in loving our neighbours, continually being surprised by God's love.

You are now citizens in the Commonwealth of God, where we are all free. Free to reach into the fathomless love of God, free to scale the heights of our own personal spiritual development, free to be what we all, in our best moments, would wish in God's sight to be.

To end where I began, if you haven't committed yourself to this yet, come and join us!