Divisions in the Church (04/29/2001)

The Pastor’s Role, Church Leadership, and the Sunday School Illustration

The Sunday school class we had this morning was interesting, it always is, and sometimes I think about Ronald Reagan. When he was president he had an unusual style of management. He would bring the brightest minds he could find from the business world, from the scientific world and so forth, put them at a long table and he'd have a bowl of jelly beans next to himself.

He probably shared some, I imagine they went all the way down the table, but he would throw something out on the table, kind of like Brother Otis does in Sunday school, and he'd sit back and eat jelly beans and listen to them come up with these ideas.

He would let them go for a while, and sometimes they would be very passionate. So he would be listening and eating jelly beans the whole time, and when the whole thing was over and the dust cleared he'd stand up and say, here's where we're going to go, because he would glean from all of the brilliant ideas, and yet he realized some of them contradicted.

So you have to bring it together into where the truth really is and move forward. That's kind of the pastor's job, and the Bible's very clear in that. Some churches have more than one pastor as they grow.

They can be called elders, pastors, bishops, it's the same word in the Greek language, but that is the job of those who are called with a special calling of leadership in the church. And so I have a good, it's hard for me to be quiet in the Sunday school, especially when Brother Otis asks me, David, what do you think?

But I enjoy hearing what everybody says. Sometimes I'm afraid if I speak up too early then no one will say anything, so it's really best sometimes not to. But it was fascinating this morning, in fact let me take you to one of the verses that was in Sunday school that ties in with the message very well.

It's in 2 Corinthians chapter 7. If you remember what we're doing, we've had a three Sunday series here, starting on Resurrection Sunday and coming down through today, where we've been discussing things accomplished by Jesus Christ, both in the resurrection, the power of the resurrection, and in the ascension where it says that he gave gifts to men.

So we've been talking about the gifts that God gives to the church and to people in the church. 2 Corinthians 7 .12 came up in Sunday school this morning, it says, in fact it was discussed for quite some time, and very many good things said about it.

Wherefore though I wrote unto you, I did it not for his cause that had done the wrong, nor for his cause that suffered the wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear unto you. It's interesting that the Corinthian church is known as the carnal church, let me show you why.

Go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Paul dealt with this problem in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, apparently it had been resolved and now he's instructing the church on how to go forward. 1 Corinthians 3 in verse 1, he says, and I brethren could not speak unto you as spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as to babes in Christ.

I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are you able. For ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are you not carnal and walk as men?

So when you see these things, whether they be envying, and not every church has all these going on at one time, but if you see any one of these envying, strife, divisions, that comes from carnality, Paul's pointing that out to them.

And he pointed out in verse 4, some of them were saying, well, I'm of Paul, some were saying of Apollos, he says, are you not carnal? Don't you understand that God is the one who has given these gifts of teachers and preachers to the church?

They're not all supposed to be the same. You're not supposed to pick sides. And that's the problem they were having. Now, it's interesting that in 2 Corinthians 7, 12, where he came and he dealt with this very open sin of immorality that was in this particular church, and he dealt with it in such a godly, strong fashion that by the time we get to 2 Corinthians, the problem had been solved.

And the person had repented and rejected his sin, turned aside from his sin and gotten right with the Lord, and now Paul's instructing the church to receive him back into fellowship. But after all that happened, he said, I didn't do any of this.

Now, obviously, the people would think this was done either to help this young man who had done the sin or correct him, or to help the person against whom he had done the sin and make them feel better.

Paul says it didn't have to do with either one of them, didn't have to do with the one who did this or the one that suffered the wrong, but it had to do with allowing the church to understand the care that he, playing the elder role or the pastor role, had for the whole church.

In other words, the correction was made for the good of the church. And that is an amazing thing to understand as we get into our message this morning. Let's go a little bit of review. The first Sunday, we talked about the administration of the gifts and how that is from God's sovereign will.

Last Sunday, we got into 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 1 through 11, predominantly. And we saw several things. It was interesting, first of all, that we were speaking of saved people in this chapter.

And as you read it, you wonder, how could saved people do these things? But it's written unto saved and sanctified people. You find that in 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 2. And then we saw in verses 3 and 4 that there was a portion of grace given to the members of the body, a portion of grace, which implies that some people have more grace, some less, but all for the purposes of God, or maybe more grace in one area, less in another, all for the purposes of God.

And then we found in verses 5 through 7 that also gifts were administered to these people in the local body, all according to the sovereignty of God as God willed to dispense them. And then we found in verse 9 that these people were called into fellowship.

Now, we don't want to read over that one too quickly because fellowship is very important in a church. It is the opposite of division. It's the opposite of schisms because true fellowship can only happen when you're in fellowship vertically with God, then you can be in fellowship horizontally with each other.

And so he calls us to be in fellowship first with God, and that then necessitates that we're in fellowship with each other because if any two of us are walking filled with the Spirit, then we're in fellowship with each other.

So it's a wonderful calling that he's called us to there in verse 9. First John chapter 1 talks about that if you ever want to go read that. And then lastly, it ended with verses 10 through 11 where it says, and I'm going to read those to you.

It says, Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, in the same judgment.

For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. There's a lot we can learn from these passages. There's a lot we can learn doctrinally, but there's also a lot we can learn methodologically, or in other words, the methods.

We can learn how to do things in the church from this passage. That's so very important because as we each read and study the Word of God, we'll find passages of scripture that the Holy Spirit is teaching us something, and it means a lot to us.

The tendency is to focus so much on that we forget how it fits in with the whole of the scriptures, and that is a very common thing among all of us as we're growing, and none of us have yet attained, so we all can have this happen.

And that's one reason we have church, one reason we have preaching from the pulpit, one reason God anoints that preaching and teaching is because it brings us back into seeing the whole picture so that we continue to have unity.

In these particular closing verses here in 1 Corinthians 1, he says that there should be no divisions, but he points out that some folks from the house of Chloe had told Paul about the sin that was in this church and the division, not only the sin of this young man that was doing the horrible sin of immorality, but also the problems that Paul, I feel, thinks was just as important, these divisions, where they were picking teams.

One would say, Apollos is my team, the other would say, Paul is my team, and then the real spiritual group said, well, we follow Jesus, and it was all carnality. And so what Paul is dealing with here is that there be no divisions.

One thing we might learn by point of methods or methodology is that obviously someone had come to Paul and told him something about other people. Well, to me, that is an obvious exception to the rule that God has made to make the church be able to work.

The general rule is you shouldn't talk about another person behind their back unless you're saying good stuff, unless you're pointing out the strong qualities. If there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.

That's the general rule. The exception to the rule is that sometimes you have to go to the leader. In our day, the leader is the pastor, or the pastors, if you have more than one, the elders of the church.

Paul filled both that role and the role of the apostle, the role of the evangelist, the role of the missionary, many in one, but he is showing clearly that it is not wrong to go to the God-called leader and administrator of a church and tell him something that's going on that he needs to know about.

That is not gossip. It is gossip if you take that to any other person other than the one doing it, with the possible exception of your spouse, because you're one, but be very careful when you take it to another person if you're not the pastor, very, very careful, and we'll see reasons for that, but we see here some interesting things just in this verse 10, that there be no divisions, that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind, the same judgment.

God is showing us that the general rule of thumb in the church is that we should be focusing on the strengths of each other, not on the weaknesses. Otherwise, we will have division, because the enemy, who's known in the Bible as the accuser of the brethren, in fact, his name, devil, when you look it up in the Greek, it means slanderer.

So, his spirit would have us to find that which is not perfect in one another and focus on that so that we can then be accusative, we can be accusing one another, and that leads to schisms and making teams where we pick teams, well, I'm in agreement with you and we know they agree to that, so we'll gain strength over here so that we can help the church, and that's how Satan deceives us into thinking we're helping the church.

He deceives us into thinking we're helping the church by getting a group together because we know that our way is right, and we're going to fight against this wrong way, and Paul rebuked that. The thing to do, if you see a problem, go to the pastor if you need to.

If you don't, just go to the Lord and pray. One thing that I think is overlooked by pastors usually, but also by people in the church is the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and that's what this study is all about.

If we begin to think that it is our job to correct every problem in the church, or some problems in the church, or maybe I pick which problem to correct, we have to be very careful that we don't take on the role in the ministry of the Holy Spirit himself, and many times when I've seen pastors do this in churches where they want to set rules that everybody has to follow, and many times I really believe they love the people and they're setting those rules to try to protect the people, but it shows an incredible lack of faith in God because the Holy Spirit lives within the body of every believer in this church, and that pastor stands there behind the pulpit knowing full well he probably shouldn't be there if everybody could see what he's thinking and doing with his life and has done his whole life and where he's been, what he came out from he feels totally unworthy, but you know what he knows?

He knows that he ain't what he used to be, he's not what he's going to be, because the Holy Spirit's working in his life, and he has seen that work in his life, so he stands before you and preaches. He knows God's working in his life, but you know where he stops sometimes?

He stops there and he doesn't believe God works in your life. You see, that's a real problem with fundamental independent Baptist pastors. We know that, don't we, Brother Roger and others? They refuse to let the Holy Spirit deal in the life of the believers.

They refuse to believe in him that he can make those changes, but he can. In fact, when we let him make the changes, it avoids schisms in the church because when we try to make those changes in people's lives, we have to deal with this thing called the human psyche, the psychology, the way the human brain works.

The human brain closes immediately when you begin to correct it or criticize it. It is totally closed to it. We made the illustration last Sunday about how Charlotte's taken great years of learning how to know exactly when.

I mean, sometimes it's absolutely necessary for a wife to correct the husband or at least show him that you're about right on the edge of that cliff there. Could I at least tell you that? They figure out ways to do it, and it still is very difficult, and so God probably showed me not to use myself and family very often as an example because that very week, we had one of those things.

It took me two days to receive what she said, but that's the human mind. If you think it's bad with men, ladies, it's bad with ladies too, don't you think? It's difficult to receive correction from your husband even, and you know he's the authority in the home, and it still doesn't make it fun or easy.

So we have to understand that if we, in 90, who can say a true percentage, let's just say 95 of the time, when you see a problem in the church, if you would just go in prayer and say, Holy Spirit, this is your job to fix this in this person's life, not mine.

Would you please work in their life and pray every time the person comes to your mind throughout the day as you're working, whatever you're doing, pray for that person. You'll be surprised that many times within a week, the problem will be fixed and you never said a word.

And there's no division because when God does it, no one can argue with him. But I would say this, that if you want to make exceptions to the general rule, many times that exception should be made by the pastor.

In other words, if there's going to be rebuking or correcting of a problem verbally, you should go to the pastor and allow him to do it or allow him to do it with you if necessary. Because he has been there and fought that spiritual battle so many times, he has insight into how people's minds are closed, how they're open, how to know when God's working in their life and it's okay to say something, how to know when it's not.

And it's safer to do it that way. In fact, I challenge you to go look up the word rebuke in the New Testament. And I think you'll find that most of the famous verses that you kind of remember in your mind about that, you'll find them in the pastoral epistles, which means it's where Paul was teaching the young pastor Timothy or in Titus, he was teaching those people how to rule the church.

It was not written for every person in the church to go out and practice these things. And go and check that out. I think you'll find it to be true. And I'll make this comment too. We need to always remember as parents, think about your own children.

Those of us who are fortunate to have many children, or let's say several children, more than one is many, isn't it? You'll learn, you'll learn. You and Rick will learn that thing. More than one is many.

But you don't like it when you see a sibling correcting the other sibling. You know why? Because they usually don't do it right. And we have an unusual situation in our family where we had a family, and then we had a surprise years later, and his name was Ben.

And so we have a group of children who are old enough, even one in college, who really are old enough to parent Ben and Matthew, but you should watch sometimes how Ben responds to that. He doesn't respond well to it.

Even if his big brother Paul, here they come. Even if he is trying to keep him safe, it doesn't work real well. But guess what? If dad walks up, what happens? Usually I'm in agreement with the older sibling, it's just that I can discern better what to do.

I can handle it better. Now, let me ask you a question. Whose children are we? God's. Many verses that have to do with that, and even some verses that deal with judgment says how can you judge someone who's, they're not your servant, they're his.

So we have to keep that in mind. That's why it's always best to go to him and ask him to fix the problem. That's the general rule. There are sometimes exceptions. And I would say this, if you're going to tread over into the exception, at least get advice from your pastor.

Go to him and say, here's what I think I see. Should I go and talk to this person? Don't just go to the person. Because what you'll do is you'll create divisions in the church. You may cause a younger brother to stumble because you may not say it in such a way that his mind is open.

He may not even come back. You never know. Now, as we get into this closing of this study on the gifts, we see through and through that we come back to God and his sovereignty on even the way that each of us are.

Our composition, our strengths, our weaknesses, it all comes back to this. It's interesting in this closing verse here in the first Corinthians chapter one passage there in verse 10, where it says that there be no divisions, but that you'd be perfectly joined together in the same mind and the same judgment.

The word mind is like the intellect or the mind. The word judgment is the understanding, but it really can be translated opinion. So we're supposed to be of the same mind and the same opinion. But what's even more fascinating than those two big important words is this little word saying, because you've heard Brother Otis teach a certain passage before where the same word comes up and you'll recognize it when I tell you what it means.

It's the word autos, which comes from a Greek root word, which means to unconsciously breathe. You breathe without even thinking about it. This word same is that word. So what we see is that if we're walking in the spirit, if we're a spirit filled church, it will be as natural as breathing to be of the same mind.

The only way that Satan can attack that is to place in our minds through imaginations and thoughts about the other brother that are not even true usually, or to take some bit of truth that's there and to blow it way out of proportion so that we begin to worry about it and think that it's our job to fix it.

Or if it's something that hurts myself, I make myself believe I need to fix that person. But really what's happening is I know if I fix them, I'll be happier because they'll be like I want them to be.

And you say, well, but I'm spiritual and I know that that's not my flesh doing that. Then you're wiser than Paul. You're wiser than some of the saints of the old Testament. In the verse that says the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, who can know it?

You can't know your own heart. So you have to stick with scripture, you have to stick with Bible methods, or you get into a ground where Satan can enter in and have a field day. We can think we're right when we're not.

I had that happen to me this week. I'm glad Brother Russ is gone because it happened with him. I had a very strongly held position on a certain thing about the Bible that I just in fact knew was right.

And here he comes. So he's just like Paul and Ben, he comes in at the wrong time. But if you go out, I do talk about you by the way. But I was shown some facts that I did not have. Some facts about truth that I did not possess, therefore my strongly held position was wrong.

Now that's your pastor talking. Now if that can happen to me, if that can happen to Paul, that can happen to any of you in this congregation. We don't, we're not always right when we think we're right.

And all of this was covered in Sunday school, which was amazing to me. It was really interesting sitting there thinking, well, okay, they're going to preach my message again. So we have to stick to Bible methods.

Now, turn with me if you would to Romans chapter 11 and verse 28. I want to get into the close of this message on the resurrection power and the ascension power. It all relates to everything that we just said.

It's just that the Sunday school lesson brought some of those things to my mind. As a matter of fact, you're going to find some of these very verses in this study that I just talked about. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.

Look at this, Romans 11, 28 gives us the context. And I will say that using this verse is a bit out of the context of what it's really written to talk about, but I believe that in verse 29, we find a universal truth that can be applied.

And I think you'll agree with me, but let's read verse 28 to get the context. As concerning the gospel, they, the Jews, are enemies for your sakes, but as touching the election, they are beloved for the Father's sakes.

Father's sakes and for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance for as ye in time past have not believed God, you have now obtained mercy through their unbelief. So obviously the context is talking about the, the Jew being partially blinded so that the Gentile can be saved and so forth.

But right in the middle of that, it says verse 29, the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Now, in the Greek language, the word repentance does not always bring up what it brings up when we say it in English, repentance.

When we say it in English, it seems more like a human thing. And many, most times it is used that way, but this is talking about a thing that God is doing. And this word repentance simply means irrevocable.

It will not change. God will not change this. So when God gives a gift or a calling, he doesn't change it. It's according to his sovereign will. It's according to his hand, his plan, his pleasure, and his will.

And therefore it's without repentance. That's the first point we need to understand when we start thinking about the fact that each of us in this church, in this local church, have specific gifts and callings that some of the rest of us don't have.

The carnality of the Corinthian church was that it bothered them that there were people that were different. They did not like the fact that everybody's not like I am. They wanted everybody to kind of be the same.

But God made us all different because we're parts of a whole body and every part is supposed to be different to please God and get God's will done in this world by this organism called the church. And so we have to understand, first of all, in dealing with this in our own hearts and minds, that these gifts and callings are given by God and he ain't taking them back.

He's not an Indian giver. The word gift is an interesting gift. It comes from a very similar word to the word charis. We get our English word charismatic from it. But what it literally means is to grant as a favor and the real Bible word in the English that really we use the most from this word is the word grace.

It is, in fact, translated into the word grace. So these gifts are granted to us as a favor by God, not only like if he gives you a gift of singing, it's not like it's a gift to you if you have that gift.

It's a gift to the church. You see what I'm saying? The fact that some of you can sing, it's not a gift to you. It's a gift to the church. Now, it is your gift in that sense. The Holy Spirit put that in you in that sense.

Yes, it's my gift. But the purpose of it is to edify the church and the calling. Well, what is kind of beautiful when you follow that word gift, by the way, down to its root meaning, you get about three different levels of meaning.

The first level is to grant as a favor. The second level means graciousness, and that shows what God is when he gives the gifts. The deep level comes from the Greek word kairo, which means cheerful or happy.

Isn't that amazing? Now, you take the fact that the Holy Spirit administers gifts to each of us. What is supposed to happen in a healthy church that's functioning according to the will of the Holy Spirit and of God is that it brings great joy in the church and cheerfulness because everyone is exercising their own gift.

They're not worried in the carnal sense that the other person can't do what they're doing or doesn't do it like they do it because they have a different gift, a different strength. That always implies with us, since we don't have the whole package like Jesus did, that we therefore have to have weaknesses.

We can't be strong in all the areas at one time. I shouldn't say we can't be. Let me rephrase it. We won't be. We won't be. I remember Dr. Freeman saying so many times, show me in the Bible where it says you have to sin today or tomorrow, so it doesn't say that anywhere.

It doesn't say you have to sin, it says you probably will, but you don't have to. That's how he would always say it, but as far as the gifts, odds are no one in here has the whole package. In fact, I think we've got some scripture that backs that up when it says that Jesus had the Holy Spirit without measure.

That implies very strongly that we have him with measure, so we have to be careful on the carnal side not to criticize those who are different and have other gifts. What we should do, see if we walk in the Spirit, what it does is what their strength does rather than focusing on their weakness or the sin they just did or whatever, whatever little weakness they have right now, we focus on what they bring to the church.

What strength do they have? What can they, what can God exercise in their life that will bring joy to the church? And then we come to this little word calling. The gifts and callings of God are without repentance.

The word calling is the word klesis, which means an invitation, and it has three levels of meaning as you go towards its root word. The first one is an invitation. The second one means literally to call.

So when you talk about a calling from God, that's just the word it comes from. But the third level means this, to hail or to incite by word or to give command. So God not only gives gifts, he gives commands to us and says, I want you to be about doing that thing.

And the apostle Paul, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said we ought to focus on the gifts that God's given us because we'll be more fruitful if we do the things where we're strong than if we try to do everything and we're doing some things where we're not gifted.

That part of the role of a pastor, I believe, in a church is to help people to see their areas of gifts and strengths because sometimes we don't see that. Part of the role of the church is to help a pastor even know when he's called to preach.

I mean, it is the church who identifies these called men and that's why they lay hands on them and say, OK, you're a preacher. It is the church who identifies men who ought to be leaders and in the area of deacon and so forth.

The church bears witness to these things. So we have gifts. We have callings, which are invitations, but it's stronger than that word, really. It is a hail from the Lord or an incitement from his word for us to go and do that thing in which he's made us strong in and to encourage the others in their areas of strength.

All of these are without repentance. They're irrevocable. Secondly, I would say this. It is God who sovereignly dispenses the gifts to men. If you would look at Romans chapter 11 and now verse 33, verse 33 says, oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out all this is in the context of the fact that he's given gifts and callings to people. And then it begins to talk about the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God and how he is unsearchable in his judgments and his ways.

You cannot fathom them. You can't put him in a box. And in the context of this passage, what is being said is that as God dispenses these gifts and callings, he dispenses them to men according to his unsearchable wisdom.

Sometimes we try to search God's wisdom out. When we look at a brother and we say, why are they like that? Are they here just to irritate me? Yes. Many times they are, and we don't like it. We try to get rid of them.

We either try to get rid of them by fixing them or if the fixing doesn't work, we hope that it sends them away and they're not around me anymore. Why? Because God put them in your life to make you grow.

Haven't we talked so many times, many of us in Sunday school about how when things are going perfect, how many of you think we grow when things are going perfect? You probably do grow if you're written in the word, but how many of you think the biggest bursts of growth come when things are, everything is just smooth or does it happen more when things are going wrong and you're having to search the Lord out?

That's right. So we never need to doubt the sovereignty of God as he dispenses his gifts and his callings in our life, but also in our brothers and sisters, and we shouldn't question it. It comes from a knowledge and wisdom that is unsearchable to us that we can't fathom from one and the only one who has all the facts and all the information.

He can't make a mistake. We can. Secondly, under this idea of God's sovereign disbursement of the gifts to men, I would say this, no one can know God's mind or give him counsel as to how to do a thing.

We find that in verse 34, look at it for who has known the mind of the Lord who has been his counselor. I don't, you think this is where this concept is, where verses like Romans 14, four come from where it says, why would you judge another man's servant?

Yea, he shall hold him up. He is holding up for God is able to make him to stand an amazing verse. The very brother that we would look at and say, I judge a weakness here. I'm going to, this is not right.

That very one Romans 14, four says, God is holding this brother up. It is his hand that's holding him up and making him to be who he will be the day he meets Jesus face to face. God is able to make him stand.

We should underline the little phrase. God is able. God is able. God is able. God is able. I don't have to do it. God will do it. I don't have to do it. God is able. God may choose to use me to play a small part in it.

He may choose to use any of you to play a small part in it, but it's not you doing it as God. And more often than not, you have to be very careful if it comes to speaking with the person, you should go to the pastor, counsel with him about that and get him praying with you because it's a very dangerous realm of spiritual warfare.

When you get involved with, with these kinds of things, well, you know, most of the time our brothers and sisters are the way they are because a sovereign God with unsearchable wisdom has placed gifts and strengths, which implies certain weaknesses that they have on purpose in their life so that they would be who they are so that they work together in the whole church to please God and to cause his will to be done.

Now if, if in, it's interesting to, to think about this. If we do not like the way God has dispersed strengths and weaknesses in our own lives or in the lives of others, are we not judging God? Turn with me to James chapter four and verse 10.

If we do not like the way God has dispensed strengths and weaknesses in our lives and the lives of others, are we not judging God? Does this not then imply that our wisdom and knowledge is greater than God's?

James 4 .10 says, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up. Speak not evil one of another. Brethren, now let me, let me show you something. This word evil is a strong, strong word in English, but in the Greek, it just implies that you're talking about the other person in a way that they would not like if they were hearing you.

It's like you're accusing them, maybe to another person, of having some weaknesses, little areas they need to work on. And we can see that. We'll pray for them together. Be very careful. There's nowhere in the Bible that it calls you to do that.