I'm

. Is the Holy Spirit at work in you?

Is he present in your church?

Today on Truth for Life,

Alistair Begg teaches how evidence of the spirit's transforming work is revealed in individuals all around the world

and in the church as a whole. Let's open our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 4.

This morning was a kind of introduction to an introduction almost.

There is one body, and we said there is only one body because there is only one spirit.

The picture of being members of a family or in a household or citizens of a kingdom or members of a body.

All of those pictures demand in some way membership, identification with, union with, all those who are equally in Christ.

And so I want just to say a word without any embarrassment to anyone, to say a word

concerning the incongruity of being made by God's grace a member of his church, included in his body,

while at the same time not actually identifying oneself fully, organically, properly,

visibly, with a local community that is true to the gospel and true to God's Word.

If, however, you are a thief on the cross, or if you are a Muslim convert who has never found any community of believers at all, or if

you happen to be a lady stranded on a desert island with only your Bible, then each of

you in those categories has a plausible reason for not being a member of a church.

But pretty well outside those categories, you have no reason.

People who claim to be believers and who refuse to join the church in the face of clear biblical instruction

and in light of providential opportunity to do so, are a cause for concern and should be a cause

for concern to themselves.

Because the metaphors presuppose that when Paul describes a community in this way,

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