How Our Church Became Reformed (Pt 5)

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. This program is dedicated to helping you better understand the word of God and the doctrines of grace. The Bible tells us, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to study along. Here's your host with today's lesson, Pastor Keith Foskey.

Daily Bible Reading and the Aim of Careful Interpretation

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Today is August the 14th, Friday, August the 14th, 2020. And if you're doing our daily Bible reading with us, today's Bible reading is going to be Acts chapter 17.

So enjoy your reading today. Don't forget that the best way to study the Bible is first observe the text, then interpret the text, then apply the text. A lot of people jump right to interpretation, but the better you observe the text, the more accurate you will interpret the text.

And accurate interpretation is necessary for proper application. So don't forget to do that. And if you'd like to be a part of our daily Bible reading, you can go to our website at sgfcjacks .org and you can download a PDF copy of our daily Bible reading we're doing through 2020.

We're doing reading through the New Testament, one chapter a day, every weekday. You get the weekends off to catch up and you can keep up with us at sgfcjacks .org. Also, if you want to visit Sovereign Grace Family Church, you can get directions and service times on our website as well.

And we would love to have you visit on an upcoming Lord's Day service. All right, we are at day five of the conversation of how SGFC became a reformed church. And I realized this hasn't really been a Bible study week.

I hope that has not been too upsetting. I know many of you do this as part of your daily Bible study but really what I hope this has been is this is a story of revival. This is a story of how God took our church and moved us in the direction that he wanted us to go using a series of events that were all orchestrated and designed and purposed by him.

And we can look back and we can see God working at every step of the way. And so I'm just, this story, every time I get to tell it, I'm encouraged by it. If you're a new visitor, you've never been to our church before, I hope you've listened to these stories because this shows how God has worked in our congregation.

And if you're a member of our church and you've been here for a while, you were there, maybe some of you were there when all this was going on and you remember what happened and how amazing it was. Sometimes it was scary, sometimes it was hurtful.

There were a lot of nights where I cried. There were a lot of times where my wife was having to encourage me to keep going because it was a hard road, but God has been gracious and he has seen us through.

And I am so grateful and so thankful to continue to be the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church. So here we are, 10 years this side of changing our name to Sovereign Grace Family Church. And there are some things that have happened in the last 10 years, important things that I want to share with you.

Joining the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals

The first one is the joining of a fellowship. We decided in 2012, I think it was, that not only were we a reformed church, but that we wanted to associate with other reformed churches. Now, I was already, I believe at that time, I was already a part of a local fellowship of pastors.

Shane Waters, who I mentioned yesterday, pastor of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, has a group called the Pastors Forum. And I was already going to that and I was already participating, I think, at that time.

But we wanted to be part of a larger network of churches so that we could minister together, work together, do things together, support missionaries together. That's a very important part of networking as churches.

Many churches can do more than one single church in regard to supporting missionaries. So we decided to join the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals. Now, I want to go ahead and discuss what that means because it's important.

Four words, each one of the words has a meaning. It is a fellowship. It is not a denomination. We are not in any way, shape or form legally bound to one another as a denomination. We are in fellowship with one another as churches.

And as far as FIRE goes, it's not a big fellowship. It's not a huge organization, but there are churches nearby such as Crosswalk Church of Daytona is a FIRE church and Pastor Mitch Pridgen, dear brother, friend of mine, and I love him dearly, and he is close by and he and I get to see each other at conferences and encourage one another, and we sort of maintain the North Florida area.

I'm trying to think of other FIRE groups that are here in North Florida. I can't right off the top of my head think of others, but brothers, if you're out there and you hear this, please forgive me. It's just because I don't have a list in front of me.

But Pastor Mitch and I are real close and we talk to each other online several times throughout the year and we encourage one another. So I wanted to mention his name. So that's what it is. It's a fellowship and it's independent churches.

That's the Fellowship of Independent Reform. Independent churches, again, the churches are all essentially autonomous and they are all self-governing. No one from FIRE comes in and tells us that we have to manage our church a certain way or do anything a certain way.

We are independent. Many of the churches are Baptist churches and one of the sort of hallmarks of Baptist churches is that each church is an autonomous body, self-governing. There's not a presbytery or a district assembly or something over that is able to come in and manage the affairs of the church.

The church manages its own affairs. And so that was another part of FIRE that we were, because we had already been a non-denominational church. We left in the nomination. We were in, 99. I mentioned that a few days ago.

The church was now, you know, basically we were independent already and we didn't wanna join a denomination. So the fact that it was entitled Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals, the independent part was very encouraging to us.

But the word reformed, I'm gonna talk about this in a minute, but the word reformed identified everybody in the group, everybody in FIRE holds to the doctrines of grace, which are the five points of Calvinism, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints.

We are all reformed in that regard. Now, I'm gonna talk in a minute about the difference between big R reform and little R reform, but for now, it's just the idea that we were, we were joining a reformed group.

I remember right before we joined, the Sunday before we took a congregational affirmation and affirmed joining the FIRE Fellowship group, I preached a sermon entitled, What is a Reformed Evangelical? What does that mean?

And I explained what it meant to be reformed and what it meant to be an evangelical. An evangelical is a person who believes the gospel, the evangel is the gospel. And evangelicalism has gotten sort of a bad name because it's been tied more to politics in recent years than it has really to theology.

So a lot of people who call themselves evangelicals use that term in a politically motivated way rather than a religiously or biblically motivated way. So FIRE in a sense uses the word evangelical because it identifies who we are, but not politically, biblically, it identifies that we are gospel believers.

And that was important. We wanted to be a part of that. We wanted to be part of the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals. And so we joined FIRE. And for just a side note, just a little side chasing a rabbit here as I do sometimes.

Over the last 10 years, I have noted that the word reformed is pregnant with meaning and it is often a highly disputed phrase. There are some who are within the Presbyterian community who would say that if you are not Presbyterian, if you're Baptist, then you're not truly reformed because reformed includes how you understand baptism.

Now, reformed Baptists would take issue with that because they identify themselves as reformed Baptists. And so if you get online, you'll see arguments between those who say, well, this person's not really reformed and that person's not really reformed.

And the two big ones that always make me laugh is when people wanna argue that John MacArthur and John Piper are not reformed. And that is true. Neither one of those men identify themselves. Neither one of their churches is reformed in the sense of having that name.

You have Grace Community Church and John Piper's Church. I forget the name of it, but it's a Baptist church. Neither one of them identify themselves as a reformed church. But the same people who would say John MacArthur and John Piper aren't reformed are often the people who would say that John Piper and John MacArthur have been instrumental in bringing many, many, many people to a right understanding of the doctrines of grace.

So even though they might not be reformed in the same way as maybe R .C. Sproul, R .C. Sproul was reformed. And it's not just about baptizing babies, but that has a big part of it because it's an understanding of certain things like covenant theology.

Covenant theology is reformed. And Presbyterian covenant theology is different than Baptist covenant theology. In fact, there are entire books that are written about the distinctions between Presbyterian covenant theology, Baptist covenant theology, how you understand the covenant of works versus the covenant of grace.

All of those things are debatable. So this is what sort of has led me in more recent years to be more comfortable identifying as a Calvinist rather than identifying as reformed. Because when I say reformed, I'm saying little r.

We are not part of a reformed movement, even though we are part of FIRE, Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals, but we're not part, we don't hold to a particular reformed confession and say this is the standard by which we would govern, even though we would believe the 1644 Baptist Confession, the 1689 Baptist Confession are wonderful confessions and we use them for teaching.

I read from the 1689 every time we do a baptism. And we would affirm things like the abstract of principles, which was a statement of faith that was used within the early Southern Baptist churches, which were very fundamentally Calvinistic in their views.

So when we talk about the concept of reformed or not reformed and the ugliness that seems to be going on about are you reformed, are you not, big R reform, little r reform, whatever, I've just come to the point where Calvinist is easier because when I say I'm a Calvinist, that is shorthand for saying I believe the doctrines of grace.

The doctrines of grace is a soteriological position, a soteriological position that I believe total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints.

Now, does that mean that I deny the other things? No, the other things are important. We have an elder led church. I think that is right. And I think it's biblical that the church have an elder government.

And I do want us to have a biblically functioning church. But when it comes to some of the more pedantic arguments about being reformed, not being reformed, there are some people who would come to our church and say, this church is not reformed, big R.

And we would say, that's fine. If that's the way you want to make the argument, because from where we're coming from, what's most important is that we are seeking to be biblical and that we are seeking to uphold what the Bible teaches about salvation, what the Bible teaches about the government of the church, what the Bible teaches about the method of salvation throughout history, involving covenants, old covenant, new covenant, those things.

And all of those are important. I'm not discounting anything. I'm simply saying, if anything, the closest that we would be to would be Reformed Baptist. But even then, we would take a few issues with how we understand the covenants, particularly how we would understand how the fourth commandment functions in the new covenant.

The fourth commandment, of course, is the commandment regarding the Sabbath. So, and if you're not familiar with our position on that, I did a debate on the Sabbath with Pastor Rob Hamm, Keystone Heights Presbyterian Church, wonderful brother.

I love him so much. And I appreciate him coming up and doing the debate with me. He and I did the debate. It is available to listen to on our YouTube page and on our sermon audio page, if you're so inclined to want to listen into that.

But the point of the matter is, we as a church, we identify with the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals. Most of the churches and fire are Baptistic, like we are. Most of them hold to a version of the 1689, whether with or without the Sabbath language.

Some of them make an addendum regarding the Sabbath language but we would all hold to basically the same theology. And in that sense, we can identify as Reformed, but if somebody wants to come along and say, well, you're not Reformed, here's my argument.

For those who are baptizing infants and they make that the standard, and some do make that the standard, I would say that's where the Reformation ended for them, but it kept going for us because we kept reforming.

Where the Reformation ended, they kept baptizing their babies. We do not, we do not baptize infants. We baptize upon profession of faith because we believe that the only person who is rightfully a member of the new covenant is a person who has been born again and has exercised faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the only way that we can, the only testimony that we can receive for somebody being born again is their confession of faith, their repentance of sin and confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so if somebody wants to argue with our pedigree regarding Reformed, I would simply say, we're Calvinist and we're part of fire and we're very happy where we are in that regard. I believe our teaching is biblical.

I believe our ecclesiology is solid. And do we have things to learn? Yes. Do we have, is there still coming things that we need to grow in? Absolutely, that's any church, but we're encouraged to keep moving forward where we are as a part of fire and as a part of, or as a Calvinistic church.

Sovereign Grace Academy and Seminary Credit

Now, before I end, I wanna mention one other thing because I said last 10 years and I really got stuck on talking about fire there and I wanna keep this less than 20 minutes. So here's what I'm gonna do.

For the last couple of minutes, I'm gonna talk about what is one exciting thing that has happened in the last few years. We believe that teaching the word of God is very important and teaching is part of our passion at Sovereign Grace.

One of my deacons asked one time, what's our main focus here? And I said, teaching the word of God. I didn't even really have to think about it. We teach the word of God, that's our focus. And so, about two years ago, we started an academy, Sovereign Grace Academy.

The purpose of the academy is to give the seminary experience to lay people, to everyday Christians, people who would never get to go to seminary. And here's a beautiful wrap-up for this whole story that started two weeks ago.

When I first told this story, I said that I started out in a seminary that was anti-Calvinist, it was no, we don't believe in Calvinism. When I wanted to open Sovereign Grace Academy, I wanted to do so in connection with a seminary.

So I went back to the seminary that I graduated from and I went to the president, who I had not met because the president that was there when I was there has passed on and be with the Lord. So I went in and I talked to him.

And I said, look, I have a doctorate from your organization. You would allow me to teach here because they allow people with doctorates to teach at the seminary. I said, I would like to start my own school and I would like our school to count for credit with your organization.

But you need to know something, I'm a Calvinist. And he was, well, he was a little surprised that I was a Calvinist. But we joined in a agreement, a relationship with one another, and now we have established in the last two years Sovereign Grace Academy, which qualifies for credit with the Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary.

So the seminary that I went to, the seminary that was anti-Calvinist has now allowed for us to be essentially an extension of what they're doing. And we teach at the church and our courses qualify for credit.

So I think that's just an amazing thing that God has done. It's sort of brought my life in ministry in full circle, bringing me back to working with the same seminary where I did learn many good things about the gospel and about the Lord.

And so I'm just encouraged at what has happened in the last 10 years. There's so many other things I could share. But I just wanted to tell you, at Sovereign Grace Family Church, we are committed to teaching the word of God.

We're committed to the doctrines of grace. We're committed to equipping the family, equipping fathers to be the disciplers of their home and equipping fathers and mothers to disciple their children well.

And we are just, we welcome people who want to come and learn about the Lord and to study the word of God together. So if you're a member of Sovereign Grace Family Church, know that I love you. If you are visiting with us, I hope that you continue to do so.

And if you've never been with us, I want to encourage you, come and visit with us one upcoming Sunday. You'll find the fellowship is sweet. You'll find the worship is God-honoring and you'll find the preaching to be expository and biblical.

So come join us. We'd love to have you. Again, thank you for listening to Coffee with a Calvinist this week. And this ends and goes into the weekend. We'll see you on Monday. Again, my name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.

May God bless you. Thank you for joining in for today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist. Keep in mind, we have a new lesson available every weekday morning at 6 .30 AM on YouTube and Facebook. If you enjoyed this lesson, please take a moment to respond by hitting the like button, leaving a comment and subscribing to the channel.

On behalf of Pastor Foskey, thank you for listening. May God bless you.