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There are essential doctrines that we must believe in order to be saved. There are secondary doctrines that will separate out church denominations. Then there are tertiary doctrines which are differences that exist within the same body, but do not cause division when we understand the text.
Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Visit our website at www .wutt .com.
Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky, and a happy July 4th to all of my American listeners. I don't have a special Independence Day program today or anything like that. Just, you know, don't blow your hand off playing with fireworks.
If a firework is lit, get rid of it. Don't hold on to it. Firework Safety 101. I expect you all to keep your digits, not to blow off any fingers. And then when I get email from you, there won't be any missing Ps and Qs.
If you want to send us an email when we understand the text at gmail .com. If you have any questions, comments, criticisms, I receive those as well. We love to hear from you. And my wife and I read those emails together sometimes, reading some of those emails before our congregation.
So thank you so much for your continued support. And by the way, your support of this program is just listening and then telling somebody else to listen as well. We keep these things going because we know people are listening.
So thank you so much for participating with us in this Bible study. As always, we encourage you to be a part of a gospel-centered church congregation. This does not replace the fellowship that you should be having with the body of Christ on a regular basis.
So be a part of that church. Attend every Sunday. And with your giving, your financial giving, first give to your church before you give to anyone else. But if you want to send us a gift, we would appreciate that as well.
Www .utt .com. And there's the Give tab on the top right corner of the page. If you can hear the pops behind me, of course it's July 4th, and we've got neighbors firing firecrackers. So you might even hear some pops going on.
My microphone might be catching them up here as we do this study. I'm not getting shot. There's nothing serious going on here. It's just firecrackers in the neighborhood. Romans 14, we're going to start in verse 13 and read to the end of the chapter.
We're not going to focus on that whole section today, but at least keeping these things in context, kind of a reminder of what we're reading here. So Romans 14, starting in verse 13. Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.
I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.
By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats.
It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.
But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Heavy stuff going on here, but some really relevant discussion on how we are to interact with one another in the body of Christ.
Showing grace to one another for the purpose of edifying and encouraging and mutual upbuilding. That's why these instructions exist. Now, as I talked to my congregation yesterday, and we were looking at Romans 14 verses 1 through 12.
Okay, so we did that first half of the chapter yesterday in the sermon. You can go and listen to it at firstsouthernbaptistchurch .org. I shared with my congregation that we have like these different tiers of doctrines that kind of distinguish between denominations and people within those denominations.
So there are essential doctrines, there's secondary doctrines, and there's tertiary doctrines. The essential doctrines are the things that you need to know and understand and believe and agree with, adhere to, just to be a Christian, just to be saved.
Now, it's not like a person has to be able to articulate the doctrine of the Trinity, which is an essential doctrine. If you don't understand that there is something distinguishable between the Father and the Son, and the Father sent the Son to die for our sins so that we might be united with the Father.
If you don't have an understanding of there being the Father and the Son, then you've not actually heard the gospel. Because you've not heard the good news about how God sent His Son into the world to die for our sins.
This is why the Apostle John says that he who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist. Because if you do not distinguish between those two, Father and Son, you are revealing that you have yet to hear the gospel of Christ.
So that's why the doctrine of the Trinity is such an essential doctrine to believe in order to be saved. But you don't have to articulate, you don't have to give like a textbook example or teach a class on the Trinity in order to be saved, but you can't deny it.
You can't say, well, there's not a Father and a Son. There's just, it's God, you know, and He can be a Father or He can be a Son. No, then you haven't actually heard the gospel because the Father sent the Son.
Okay, that is an essential doctrine. Other essential doctrines include believing that Christ is God. Okay, that's an essential doctrine. If you just think that He was a regular man and we're following the teaching of some dude and it's the religious belief that I choose to accept, well, you're not actually saved.
So these are things just kind of giving an example of what an essential doctrine might entail. Original sin, that's another one. You have to believe that you have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Otherwise, what has Christ saved you from? Again, He's just a religious belief. He's just something that you decided to adopt as your regular religious ritual rather than understanding that you had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and a sacrifice was required in order to have right standing with God, which is what Christ provided for you.
Essential doctrines, that's the tier of essential doctrines. The next level is secondary doctrines. And the secondary doctrines are what distinguishes between denominations. So here in our community, we are the First Southern Baptist Church.
That's the church where I pastor. We've got several Baptist churches. I think at least, oh man, five or six. Now this is a town of 25 ,000. Okay, but when I say five or six Baptist churches, I don't mean five or six other Baptist churches.
I mean five or six different versions of Baptist churches. They all adhere to a different Baptist confession, at least five or six different varieties. And there's even more than that, probably two dozen or something like that.
So then we have the First Christian Church, which is actually non-denominational. They're not Campbell and Stone. There is the Flint Hills Church, which is in Assemblies of God. We've got the Junction City Church of the Nazarene, which happens to be the largest church in town.
So these are different denominations, but we all have the essential doctrines alike. All of us believe in the things that are necessary to believe in order to be saved. So there are Christians worshiping in those churches.
But we also have churches here in town that do not believe the essential doctrines, like, for example, either dismissing the Trinity or believing that the Word of God is not inerrant and you can add to it or take away from it and it really doesn't change it.
That's an essential doctrine. And so to believe that the Bible can be whatever you want it to be is to dismiss something fundamental about God and His Word being supremely authoritative. You look into that church's teaching and you'll find a lot of other wonky things on top of that.
So these are heretical churches. We're also talking about Jehovah's Witnesses, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and some of those kinds of things. And though they call themselves a church, those who are within their midst don't actually know the gospel, and they are a mission field.
So if you meet a Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness, you can't think of them as being saved as you are. Rather, you need to preach to them the gospel because they don't yet know it. They know a version of the Bible that is not true.
It is not according to the sound Word of God. So second-tier doctrines or secondary doctrines are what separate out denominations. We're all still believers. We're all still one in the body of Christ, but we worship in different ways because of disagreements related to secondary doctrines.
And some of these secondary doctrines might include the way baptism is administered, the way the Lord's Supper is practiced, end-times views, eschatology. That could be a secondary doctrine that separates out denominations.
I've seen a church split into two different churches because they disagreed on matters related to the tribulation in the millennium and those kinds of things. The thing that separates us from the J .C. Nash Church in particular is the doctrine of eternal security.
We as a Southern Baptist Church believe once saved, always saved. Christ said that the Father gives them to me and they will never be snatched out of my hand. The Father who is greater than all, they will never be snatched out of my Father's hand.
I and the Father are one. So if you have received eternal life in Christ Jesus, it's truly eternal. It's not momentary. You have it forever and you cannot be snatched away from Christ. Whereas the Nazarene Church believes that a person can lose their salvation, which is an understanding of doctrine that we simply cannot share.
And this is why there will always be denominations. I had an evangelist come into our community. I think it was last year sometime. And he said to me, he was kind of discouraging me on the fact that we were a Southern Baptist Church.
And we were even talking about a church plant. And he says, you need to make that church plant non-denominational. I said, well, that's not going to be the case. It's still going to be Southern Baptist.
And he started going into why denominations were dying. And eventually they're going to become a thing of the past. And I didn't really want to argue with him over it. We are both after the same thing.
He was in my community evangelizing and bringing people to Christ. And his message was absolutely very solid. So I wasn't going to quarrel with him. But quite frankly, there will always be denominations.
Because there will always be differences of opinion, especially concerning baptism in the Lord's Supper. And those seem to be the two big things that tend to distinguish between denominations. You can have a Reformed Baptist Church and Reformed Presbyterian Church.
Two completely different views of covenant. And they are not going to see eye to eye on those things to be able to combine and become one church. But they are still one church in Christ Jesus. That is the church of Jesus Christ.
The one body under one baptism. Though they differ on how baptism should be administered and baptism according to covenant. We are still one body in one baptism with Christ Jesus. Because we all are in one spirit.
All according to the essential doctrines that we read, believe, and adhere to. Because we're all saved. We're all brethren in the body of Christ. Making sense? I know I'm kind of rattling on about this.
But just making sure that we understand differences between these essential doctrines and secondary doctrines that tend to separate out. Well, the essential doctrines we all have in common. The secondary doctrines which separate out denominations.
Then we get to tertiary doctrines. And the word tertiary simply means three. So a third tier level. Essential is at the top. Secondary doctrines separate out denominations. Tertiary doctrines are differences that we have within the same body.
Okay? So the same church congregation. All of the members are individual members. But individually of one another in Christ. As we had read previously in Romans 12 .5. Though we. Though. I'm sorry. So we though many are one body in Christ.
And individually members of one another. Now because we are still individual people. We are one mind in Christ. But we are individual people. There are going to be different views. And no two people are going to see exactly the same on every issue.
There are going to be differences of opinion on tertiary matters within the same body of believers. The same congregation of worshipers. And that's okay. In fact, Paul said to the Corinthians. There must be factions among you.
So that those who are genuine might be revealed. We have read previously in Romans 12 .3. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you. Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.
But to think with sober judgment. Each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. We're all on different walks of our spiritual maturity. Some more mature than others. Some accelerate in maturity.
Some take a little bit longer on the path of sanctification that they are on. So because there are these different progressions. And a varied grace that Christ has poured out upon individual members of the body of Christ.
So we are going to have these differences of opinion. And what we have to be able to do is differ with one another. Respectfully. And still in a way that is encouraging and edifying to one another. Not creating these divisions in the body.
Though we might have a difference of opinion on a tertiary matter. But even despite these differences. Or even through these differences. Able to encourage and grow and build one another up in love. So that's what we're talking about here in Romans 14.
Pretty much the whole chapter as we've been looking at it. Last week we were in verses 1 -12. This week as we're in verses 13 -23. We're looking at tertiary differences of opinion within a congregation.
And Paul stressfully urging that we not pass judgment on anyone. Nor put a stumbling block in front of a brother. Because we have a difference of opinion. In other words, not letting this develop to a place that we would make somebody feel guilty.
Because of the tertiary belief that they have. Or that it would develop into a quarrel in which we're both sinning. There's some of those fireworks right there. I told you we were going to have during the program.
Anyway, I think that's a good alarm for me to kind of wrap up here. Because I'm coming up on 15 minutes. So that's what we're going to be discussing more about as we go on here. So how we can take these tertiary differences.
And continue to encourage and grow one another through these things. Rather than creating separations and quarrels and divisions. Which should not be among us in the body of Christ. Rather in these differences we reveal those who are genuine.
Those who are able to love one another through differences of opinion. And grow each one up in love. Our wonderful God we thank you so much for sending your son Jesus into the world to die for our sins.
Without that sacrifice we would not even be able to pray to you. We have access to the throne of God because of the intermediary we have between us and you. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thank you for the gift of your son.
That gives us true freedom. Freedom from sin and death. As we celebrate freedom during a holiday such as this. Help us to remember that freedom is not free. It takes a great price for us to be free. And for us to be free from our sins and from the wages of sins which is death.
It took the sacrifice of the perfect son of God. So let us celebrate that with our whole lives each and every day that we commit to the Lord. Celebrating the giving of your son Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
And because you have forgiven us help us to forgive one another. To not quarrel with one another. To not create division between each other. Though we have differences of opinion but rather to build one another up in love.
Calling one another to repentance if necessary. Encouraging one another in our strengths. Thank you God and guide us in these things. In this process of sanctification that we are in. That we are helping one another through.
And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more online at www .utt .com.