Followers of Men

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Okay, all right, let's turn to 1 Corinthians 1, and we will be reading verses 1 all the way to 17.

00:14

Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sosthenes, the church of God that is in Corinth, those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our

00:29

Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. Grace to you, and peace from God our

00:35

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you are enriched in him and all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our

00:57

Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

01:03

God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our

01:09

Lord. I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

01:21

For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.

01:27

What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow

01:33

Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

01:41

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name.

01:50

I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.

02:01

And not with words of eloquent wisdom lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. Amen. Let me just pray for us again real quick here.

02:13

Dear Holy Father, I ask that you would bless your word and its reading and its preaching.

02:21

I pray that you would use me as your instrument to bring this good gift to your people.

02:28

I pray that you would grow us all in you together. In Jesus' name, amen. So one thing that I enjoy doing is reading and learning about various cults, and reading and learning about cult leaders.

02:48

And lately I've been learning some about some more popular pop culture cult leaders, right?

02:56

Like David Koresh, Jim Jones. And it amazes me how many followers they can amass even though their beliefs are so far out there.

03:07

Jim Jones, who became popular with a lot of his activity not far from here in San Francisco a long time ago, he eventually came to discredit the

03:20

Bible entirely, cast it off as being untrue. He claimed that he was the reincarnation of Gandhi.

03:26

He claimed that his followers would live with him on another planet after he died. And then eventually, despite all these things, he still had so many followers that when he finally got his followers to drink the

03:39

Kool -Aid, and if you never knew where that term came from, this was it, he had his followers literally drink poisoned

03:46

Kool -Aid. When they drank the Kool -Aid, it was nearly 1 ,000 of them that died.

03:53

So despite all those ridiculous beliefs, he still had nearly 1 ,000 followers. What is it that causes people to follow leaders?

04:04

What is it that makes them so excited about these charismatic people? I think maybe it's the borrowed confidence.

04:11

When they're uncertain, they like having the borrowed certainty from someone else. It's not clear to me what exactly it is, but there's something strong about it.

04:23

Now, you might say to yourself, well, you know, I would never be led away by someone like Jim Jones, but think about this for a second.

04:30

Pick your favorite teacher, maybe just a popular teacher somewhere in Christianity, and think about all the people who follow them, and think about if they were to have a new doctrine, how many people would believe it just because that person said it?

04:48

Now, do you have someone in your mind? Now, imagine them introducing something new. How many people would follow them just because they trust this person so much, and they have such a loyalty, and their identity is found in that person, that they would believe this thing?

05:02

You see, this is not just something that affects the most weak -minded. This is something that affects everyone, and even if you're not a

05:10

Christian, chances are there's some philosopher, some religious leader, some politician that you find to be greatly charismatic, greatly attractive, and that you are led by this person.

05:27

Paul, in this letter, is concerned about the Corinthians. He's concerned about the

05:34

Corinthians because he's afraid that they are the ones who would drink the Kool -Aid. He's afraid that they're the ones who would find their identity and their loyalty found in something other than Christ.

05:46

You see, the only cure for this mess that is frequently today called tribalism is having something greater, having some greater truth, some greater leader that can unite.

06:03

It's not found in other men, but it is found only in Jesus Christ. See, tribalism offers some kind of faux unity that divides, right?

06:12

Tribes are a part of still the same nation, yet they're different, they're apart, so they divide the nation into different tribes.

06:21

The only way that can be united is under a single person, under a single leader, under a single truth.

06:29

The truth we have before us and the truth Paul has for the Corinthians is Jesus Christ. So as we look through this passage, we're going to see what unity is, why it's important, and then how to accomplish unity, how to accomplish it specifically through uniting under Jesus Christ and nothing else.

06:55

So let us consider that as we walk through this passage.

07:04

I appeal to you, brothers, this first 10 in 1 Corinthians 1, I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our

07:09

Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

07:20

So this is a very simple definition. All of you agree there's no divisions and you're of the same mind and same judgment.

07:28

When it says that all of you agree, what it's literally saying, and maybe you have a translation that says this, it says that you speak the same thing, that all of you speak the same thing.

07:40

This is primarily talking about their doctrine, right? They all have the same beliefs and when they express the faith, they're all expressing the same thing.

07:51

And that's not something that's happening here. When they express it differently by saying, I follow

07:56

Apollos or I follow Cephas. So it is important for us to agree in our doctrine so that we can present a unified front for Christianity.

08:07

You know, there's a lot of other Christians who I would consider Christians, but I wouldn't necessarily be able to present a unified front and sharing the gospel with someone because the way they would express the faith, and not just the way they would express it, but the way they understand it is different than me.

08:24

So while we have some shared unity in Christ, you know, if this person is going to focus on some idea like Jesus is trying to save you and you're keeping him from saving you, that kind of thing,

08:36

I would have a problem with that because I don't believe Jesus tries to save, I believe he actually does save everyone who he intends to.

08:42

And so something like that, while I might be willing to acknowledge this other person as a Christian despite the way they're speaking,

08:49

I would not be able to present a unified front for the gospel, for Christ. Now, it's not just the things that are believed, but it's also how these things are expressed.

09:01

You know, if two people believe that Jesus is God, but only one person is willing to speak in terms of the

09:07

Trinity because the word Trinity is not found in the Bible, the other person wouldn't be willing to say that word. You're not going to have people speaking the same thing.

09:15

It does not look like a unified front from the outside. But this is a reason that churches have confessions and they have creeds so they can be speaking the faith, not only believing the same things, but speaking it the way that other

09:30

Christians do so that we all have a unified front, so that we're all speaking the same thing.

09:38

And you know, this was even a problem in the first several centuries of the church when they were studying this doctrine of the

09:44

Trinity. There were a lot of people who were saying roughly the same things, but some people would use the word hypostasis, it's a

09:52

Greek word, to mean substance. You know, God is one substance, he's one God, but three persons, right?

09:59

So if someone used the word hypostasis to mean substance, someone used it to mean person. So you have some theologians saying that there are three hypostases, some theologians saying that there's just one hypostasis.

10:11

Right, and so that, even though they both agreed in the doctrine because they were speaking in different ways, there was division among them.

10:18

So, you know, one of the ways, one of the practical ways that we as Christians have unity is by conforming our expressions and being willing to use these terms that unite

10:31

Christians. So in addition to the green, he says that there should be no divisions.

10:39

So in addition to our doctrine, also in practice, there should be no divisions. There's a lot of things that divide people that are not just doctrinal.

10:49

Think about it, maybe a person just doesn't like another person, and so they're divided with them.

10:55

Maybe a person is attracted to their own demographic, and so they don't spend time with other people because they're too young, too old, too rich, too poor, too introverted, or too extroverted.

11:07

There's a lot of things that divide people. Consider for a moment, you know, who in the church you might be most divided with.

11:17

Really, really think of a few people. Now think about what it is that divides you. Is it doctrinal?

11:22

Is it practical? What kinds of things divide you? What kinds of things could you be doing in order to remove that barrier?

11:34

He says also that we should be of one mind, the same mind, and of the same judgment. So while before he's talking about things that are outward, he's outward division, he's out those ways of speaking the same thing, he's now talking about inwardly, our mind, our judgment, that it should all be united, should all be the same.

11:56

You know, if we were to build a building together, and we were to run by different blueprints, and I'm building something like a barn, and you're building something like a castle, and you have a turret over here, and I have a loft over here, not only will the project fail, but chances are we'll become hostile with each other as we don't like what we're seeing as we're bumping up against each other.

12:20

It is so critical to be of the same mind, to be of the same judgment, to be working off the same blueprint, which is

12:26

God's blueprint, his word and the right understanding of it. Now there's a lot of things that unity is in here, but I want to also explain what unity isn't.

12:38

First of all, unity is not uniformity. There's no guarantee in scripture that there will be, that everyone, every

12:46

Christian will have the same preferences, right? We'll not have all the same favorite food, the same favorite hymn.

12:52

We won't have the same gifts. We won't have the same abilities or talents. That's not what we have in this passage.

13:01

And in fact, he will address that later, explaining how there's diversity and how we have unity even despite our diversity.

13:07

And because of our diversity, not just despite it. Additionally, unity is not something that is produced by external mandates, right?

13:19

It's not something that is solely external. It's not just about speaking the same thing and not having any external divisions.

13:26

It's about being of one mind and one judgment, right? It's something that has to be internally produced.

13:32

It's not something that can be mandated from on high. You can't mandate that someone's heart change.

13:41

Their heart has to change on its own or God has to change their heart. So some of you know that I spent some time writing gospel -centered material to reach out to an organization in the

13:58

Philippines known as the Iglesia Ni Cristo. One of the things they're famous for is that they take this verse that says you to be of the same judgment to mean that they should all be voting the same way.

14:10

And so they're able to tell their followers how to vote and they command a large portion of the electorate in the

14:15

Philippines. That's not what this is saying. There's no external commands that can produce the same mind and the same judgment.

14:31

Additionally, unity is not apathy toward minor differences.

14:37

And I think this is really important because I think this is the most common thing that people get wrong about unity.

14:45

There's this popular saying, in the essentials unity, in non -essentials liberty, in all things charity.

14:58

It's often credited to Augustine. It's actually something, it's a quote that didn't come around until the 17th century.

15:04

But while there's a lot of things to like in that quote, there's a lot of things to like. Yes, there are some things that all

15:10

Christians must agree on. There are some things that if you disagree, that doesn't automatically make you not a

15:16

Christian. And we should have charity in all things. There's a lot to like about that quote.

15:22

However, a lot of people embrace it wholesale without considering the implications.

15:29

And they go on to say that basically what this means is if we have liberty in the non -essentials, then really the non -essentials don't matter.

15:37

That there's no point in being of one mind when it comes to the non -essentials. And we can just set those things aside and not even think about them, not talk about them.

15:46

And that's what real unity is. Only caring about mere Christianity, the core parts that really matter.

15:53

The problem is you end up breeding division through that. You allow division to grow when you're not willing to talk about the minor things and trying to pursue this first as much as possible, growing in one mind, even about the small matters.

16:07

Yes, we can have liberty in the non -essentials. Yes, we can have charity and understand that different people are coming at the scripture from different perspectives.

16:16

And so we'll often not reach the same conclusions. However, we should be striving to reach the same conclusions.

16:25

One example I think of is the belief in whether or not man is a body and soul or body, soul, and spirit.

16:34

So this is often pointed out as a very minor thing, very minor, whether or not you believe that man is made of two parts or made of three.

16:42

See, body and soul are body, soul, and spirit. And maybe it's not something you've considered before. We can talk about it another time.

16:49

But there are so many things that happen with people who have believed that man is body, soul, and spirit.

16:57

If they introduce two spiritual categories, if the spirit is different than the soul and they're not just rough synonyms for each other, it's led people to deny original sin, to deny that people are born sinfully.

17:10

It's led people to deny the resurrection or the state of the dead when they die being conscious, as Jesus said, this day you will be with me in paradise.

17:21

So even minor things like that become very important if they are allowed to grow and they aren't dealt with at the root.

17:31

And I don't mean that dealing with them has to be cutting them out, but it's important for us to talk about these things, to be of one mind, even on the non -essentials.

17:43

This is not just talking about the essentials. In fact, as you go through 1 Corinthians and you look at all the things he addresses, consider how many of these things are essential.

17:53

It's really not many of them. There are only a few things where he talks about, or there's only 1

18:00

Corinthians 5 where he talks about putting someone out of the congregation. This is not a letter like Galatians where he's talking about the very anathema, this person needs to be out.

18:11

It's not a letter like that. All these things are things where a Christian could get them wrong and still be a

18:17

Christian. However, Paul is saying that these things, still we should become unified on them and we should care even about secondary issues.

18:25

So unity is not apathy about secondary issues. So having discussed unity and what it is, now we should consider why it's important.

18:39

In verse 11, he says, "'For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.'"

18:50

Now, Chloe's people, it's not clear what it means by her people.

18:58

You know, this is the same kind of phrase of people of Chloe, kind of like, you know, I am of Apollo, I am of Cephas, et cetera.

19:05

It's really, it's grammatically fairly similar. So it's not clear whether or not these are followers of Chloe, whether or not they're people of her household, her servants, et cetera.

19:16

It's not even clear whether or not Chloe is a believer or an unbeliever, whether she's incurrent or outside of current.

19:24

A lot of these details are unknown to us because Chloe's not mentioned outside of this passage.

19:31

However, this does tell us that there is a reputation at stake, that the reputation of the church and the reputation of Christ, which

19:39

Paul will talk about much more later in the letter, is at stake in these matters. You know, we are presenting

19:46

Christ together in our unity. And so to be divided is to present a divided Christ.

19:54

Additionally, he speaks of them as being brothers, twice over. He says, "'I appeal to you, brothers.'"

20:01

And then at the end here, he says, "'There is quarreling among you, my brothers. "'You know, there is a great joy "'to be had in a real brotherhood.'"

20:13

You know, the song Josh read in the opening. "'How good and pleasant it is for brothers "'to dwell together in unity.

20:20

"'How good and pleasant it is. "'There is a brotherhood that is missed "'when there is not unity.'"

20:26

There is something, yes, there's something important here. And I think it's elusiveness just becomes apparent in something that's maybe not so obvious here.

20:43

He says that there is quarreling among you. And then he goes on in the next verse to explain that. What I mean is that each of you says, et cetera.

20:51

Now, if you read this letter, one of the things that frequently frustrates people is that Paul doesn't explain what he means.

20:57

He assumes the Corinthians already know because they've been writing to him in a letter. They already do know.

21:04

Now, here is one situation where Paul explains himself. I think we have good reason to think that the

21:11

Corinthians wouldn't have known what he was talking about if he hadn't. If he had just said, you all are quarreling, they might say, what are you talking about?

21:18

We're quarreling? I don't think they even recognize their divisions as constituting quarreling.

21:27

When I was a student in college studying to be a software engineer, I always prided myself on using the best tools.

21:34

If you use the right tools, sometimes they're hard to use. For example, to be a good software engineer, a lot of times you have to use the command line.

21:43

And the command line is pretty hefty to use, but once you get good at it, you can become very efficient.

21:50

Always prided myself on this. And one day, when I was in grad school,

21:56

I had a friend come and tell me about a new tool that could evaluate your memory and find these really difficult errors that are known as segfaults.

22:04

And so segfaults are just very difficult to figure out because usually they happen in a far different place where the error arises, like the root issue is somewhere else entirely.

22:14

And so when he showed me this, I wanted to cry because I thought about all the all -nighters

22:21

I had spent in undergrad trying to find segfaults and not being able to find them because I didn't have this tool.

22:29

And if I had just known this tool existed, and I'm being literal about all -nighters, a lot of all -nighters,

22:36

I probably would have been spared. I wanted to cry. I think it's like that for a lot of Christians.

22:42

They think they have unity. They assume they have unity, just like I assumed I was using the best tools. They have no idea that they're missing out on it, just like the

22:50

Corinthians. They don't recognize their divisions as divisions. They don't recognize their quarreling as quarreling. So don't just, yeah, don't just pass this over and think and assume that you already have sufficient unity.

23:05

Really think about it. Really think about what Paul might consider a division. Really think about what divisions you might have between yourself and others.

23:16

This is important. There is a great joy that is missed out if you don't know this unity, if you don't know true brotherhood.

23:27

So we've spoken about what unity is and why it's important. Now let's look at the next verse and we'll begin to see how to accomplish unity.

23:37

What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow

23:43

Cephas, or I follow Christ. Okay, so Paul, he's the author of this letter.

23:50

Apollos is a Jewish convert. Cephas is another name for Peter.

23:56

So these are all good leaders. They're all true leaders. They're all charismatic in their own rights.

24:02

And it's very understandable why someone would want to follow their leadership. Now, the difficulty in this passage is what does he mean when he says,

24:17

I follow Christ? There's a lot of different thoughts about what exactly this means.

24:24

So some have said that this is the true group in Corinth, that there's this party that actually follows

24:31

Christ, but these other people follow after him. There's some people who say that this group that claims to follow after Christ, that they're just as arrogant as the others in following after him and lording it over others.

24:48

There's other people, and I'm sympathetic with this, that say that there's not actually a

24:54

Christ party, but that this is Paul's own conclusion.

25:01

He's saying, you say you follow Paul, follow Apollos, et cetera, but I follow Christ. Now, the only problem with that, or the biggest problem with that is that grammatically it just doesn't follow.

25:11

Each one of these statements is parallel. So Paul is setting them all parallel.

25:17

However, another possibility is that regardless of whether or not these are specific parties,

25:23

Paul is introducing the idea of a Christ party to show them that the arrogance and folly of this whole situation.

25:29

By following after different men, they're lowering Christ as though he is just an equal option, as though he's an equal category.

25:42

They're missing out, that to have true unity, they ought to be following Christ rather than men.

25:50

Now, there was nothing wrong with these others. They were not teaching anything false. Paul himself does not claim to be a false teacher.

25:59

He is teaching true things, and yet he ought not to be followed over Christ. There's an importance in having a loyalty and identity that is rooted in Jesus Christ, high above all other loyalties and identities.

26:16

See, Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross, when he died on the cross, he purchased a kingdom and he married it, kingship, so that we could be united under him and not under any other leader who will not be able to truly unite us.

26:34

When he died on the cross, he purchased forgiveness for us. He purchased peace with God so that we could have peace with him, and through having peace with them, having peace with each other.

26:48

Jesus, when he died on the cross, he purchased unity with himself so that we could be unified with him, and then through that, unified with each other.

26:57

And he purchased for us the Holy Spirit so that we would have him leading us to be unified in mind, unified in judgment.

27:08

You know, when he speaks of having one mind and being of one judgment, that mind he's talking about is explained in the next chapter.

27:18

It is the mind of Christ himself. And the mind of Christ himself is explained in the next chapter, to be the

27:25

Holy Spirit. By having the Holy Spirit, we have the mind of Christ. You know, when it says to be of one mind, that doesn't mean that I'm supposed to have your mind and you're supposed to have his mind and his mind is supposed to be my mind.

27:38

We can't, our minds will never be each other's minds, but we can have

27:43

Christ's mind through the Holy Spirit. And Christ's mind is Christ's mind is Christ's mind.

27:49

This is a real possibility to have one mind. It'd be an impossibility if we were trying to ourselves be each other.

27:58

We can't, but we can possess the mind of Christ through having the Holy Spirit. And it is through this that Christ has made unity for us.

28:09

You see, this is not something that we do for God. This is not something that by being unified together, you know, we're serving

28:15

God, although that is true. But primarily, God, through Christ, is creating in us unity.

28:23

This is not something we do for him and it's something he does for us. This one mind is explained elsewhere in Philippians 2 when it speaks of us having the one mind of Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider that to be something to be grasped onto, but instead became in the form of a servant and served.

28:49

Having the mind of Christ, not acting out of selfish ambition, not valuing yourself over others, that is the path to true unity.

29:01

You know, all others will fail. You know, I apologize because I'm afraid that this is going to become a really overdone illustration in the next couple of months, but just consider the political situation right now and the tribalism that exists there.

29:17

Consider the animosity between parties because they find their, a lot of people find their identity and their loyalty under men.

29:28

And it doesn't even, a lot of times, it's not even about the battle of ideas, it's about the people. This situation with, this situation with people following different people, it's not just because, you might discredit the whole thing and say, well, that's just because the candidates, you look at the candidates, man, they're really far apart or they're pretty bad, et cetera, that's not it at all.

30:05

If you pick any two people, doesn't matter how close they are, doesn't matter how true they are, you know, Paul and Apollos, those are both good guys.

30:12

Cephas and Apollos, those are both good guys. You take any two people, and if people start finding their identity and their loyalty underneath these individuals, you will necessarily have division.

30:25

And these people are true, Paul and Apollos and Cephas, but the problem is they are not truth itself.

30:33

Jesus Christ is wisdom, and Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

30:39

As it says in scripture, He is the way, the truth, and the life.

30:46

He is the very substance of truth. You see, that's what makes Him the true unifier because these others approximate truth.

30:54

He is Himself truth. And if you're finding your identity, you find your loyalty and anything else other than Christ, you will be divided.

31:06

You will not experience that true joy of brotherhood. You will not, um, you will not experience the fullness of salvation in this life that God has for you.

31:20

So let us, as we are walking together, to not find our loyalties and our identities and other things, whether they be in the church or outside the church, but let us find our loyalty and our identity ultimately in Christ Himself, who is the one producing in us unity, who through the cross is the one accomplishing unity, that though we have all the differences we have, though we come from all the backgrounds we come from, we can still be unified through Him.

31:51

Now there's a lot of questions that arise in this passage. He says, don't say, when he essentially says, don't say you're from Paul or you're of Apollos or you're of Cephas.

32:06

So for example, is there something wrong with saying, you know, I'm a Calvinist or having labels like that?

32:14

I do not think that there is something wrong with using a label to describe beliefs.

32:20

The problem is not with labels, it's with loyalties. If your loyalty is to something, is to a person or something, and that competes with Christ, that's a problem.

32:33

So I think it's only a matter of time until it's really convenient and kind to be willing to accept labels that describe beliefs, even if those labels are named after someone who articulated that idea very well.

32:46

There are a lot of people who say things like that they have no creed but Christ. You know, they're not willing to accept any kind of human statement other than statements made by the

32:57

Bible. The problem is if you do that, you can't make any statements yourself if you're not willing to appeal to ideas as written by a particular individual or a group of individuals, then really you're not standing for anything at all because while these words exist and are true, we live in a sinful world with sinful ideas and people claiming to believe the

33:21

Bible does not mean that they actually do. And that does not mean they actually understand what it says.

33:27

So it's not enough just to say, I believe the Bible. That's fence sitting, okay? That's not actually taking a side.

33:33

But this was given to us so that we might speak the truth even in our own words. You know, there's a name for your typical

33:45

Christian who's not willing to take sides or, you know, remember when

33:51

I was talking about the minor doctrines, who's not willing to think about the minor doctrines.

33:57

Evangelifish, if you've ever heard that before. Evangelifish because they're amorphous and not necessarily stuck on a different position and until, you know, it becomes convenient for them.

34:11

There are a lot of errors have been made in the name of this verse saying, don't say you're from Paul or Apollos, et cetera.

34:20

You know, there was one, there were two men, Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone who came up with a group of churches called the

34:27

Church of Christ. If you see churches called the Church of Christ, chances are it comes from this movement.

34:34

And, you know, they decided there was a problem with all the other labels, so they denied labels and all the churches are just called

34:40

Church of Christ or just Christian church. And they thought this was a movement towards real unity.

34:48

The problem is they're separating themselves from everyone else, making their own little divided denomination even though they claim that they're not in the denomination.

34:56

They are, and even though they claim not to follow after Campbell, they are still

35:01

Campbellites even though they don't like that term. I have my own story about this verse.

35:09

This verse made a large impression on me when I was a teenager. And I thought that there shouldn't be any such things as denominations.

35:17

And so when I lived in Austin, Texas for a year, a friend invited me to her church and I went to her church not thinking that I should care about what denomination it is because perhaps

35:28

I was too consumeristic or too this is the care about these sorts of things. And so I went to that church and it's the first time

35:35

I had a real job. I was doing an internship. So I was making a lot of money, you know, a lot compared to anything

35:41

I had made before anyway. And so I'm giving this church more money than I had ever given a church before.

35:46

And I was giving them more time than I had ever given a church before. And then after a month,

35:53

I found out that they believe there was actually a derivative of one of those churches I mentioned before, one of the

35:59

Campbell Lake churches. They believe that you have to be baptized to be saved and only their baptism counts, no other baptism counts.

36:06

And so I realized that, wow, I wasn't caring about those labels. And if I had paid attention to what those labels meant,

36:15

I would have spared myself a lot of wasted effort and money and, you know, the heartache that it did cause me to realize what

36:23

I had just spent all my time and money doing. Labels are important.

36:30

It's loyalties that are an issue. You should not have, it's okay to be a Baptist. This is a Baptist church.

36:37

The problem is it's being a Baptist above being a Christian, being a Baptist as some loyalty that competes with Christ himself.

36:44

It should be something easily discardable if the truth says otherwise, if Jesus Christ and his word says otherwise.

36:56

So as you consider this passage, you consider the unity that we ought to have, that it's not uniformity and it's also not discarding minor differences and not thinking about them.

37:12

You think about the importance. It's not just the reputation of Christ that is along the line but also there is a great joy of brotherhood that was missed if we don't have this unity.

37:27

As you think about these things, think also about how this is accomplished. You know, there is no real unity found in congregating around anyone or anything else other than Christ because he is not approximating truth.

37:40

He is truth itself and he is not one attempting to produce unity.

37:46

He is one who has accomplished unity through the cross. If you don't know unity and you don't know him, if you trust in him today, you can have that unity.

37:58

You can have a wonderful brotherhood with other brothers and sisters.

38:04

And if you do already know him, consider what Paul might say to you. Would you be surprised if he considered any of your activity to be quarreling?

38:17

Congregate around him. Consider your loyalty and your identity and him to be high above all else.

38:25

Everything else will fail you, all other leaders of the world. You might think that finding an identity or a loyalty in someone else is going to produce some kind of security because they're living and they're speaking to the matters of today.

38:42

The problem is, is Christ is living. He is, this word is living. He is speaking to the matters of today.

38:49

Those others might give you some false sense of security, some false sense of confidence when you yourself are unsure and you rely on them instead.

38:58

But in the end, all that lies down that road is poison Kool -Aid. Christ has truth.

39:06

He has wisdom. He has grace. Only in him is true unity found. Let's pray.

39:17

Dear Heavenly Father, you have purchased a wonderful thing for us and your son.

39:23

We thank you for this great unity and brotherhood we have, though we are naturally enemies with you and with each other.

39:30

I ask that you would build your kingdom in us and through us and that we would become more and more like your son, more and more unified with him and with each other.