June 26, 2018 Show with Jesse Barrington on “Unity Amidst Our Diversity: How To Passionately Pursue & Defend Truth While Striving to Maintain Unity in Our Local Churches”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy, what is it today?

Today is Tuesday. I forgot what day it was. Tuesday, July, I'm sorry,

I'm forgetting the month too. Tuesday, June 26th, 2018, and I am delighted to have a returning guest to my program today and I'm delighted to be promoting a very important and exciting event that he is going to be involved in.

I'm speaking specifically of Jesse Barrington, who is a conference speaker and he's a pastor at Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas.

Today we are going to be addressing unity amidst our diversity, how to passionately pursue and defend truth while striving to maintain unity in our local churches.

We're also going to be announcing the upcoming Fellowship Conference New England being held

August 2nd through the 4th in Portland, Maine at the Deering Center Community Church there in Portland, but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jesse Barrington.

Well, thank you, Chris. I appreciate you having me back. It's a privilege to be on. Yeah, well, after forgetting the day and the month,

I'm glad I remembered your name and the name of your church. Amen, brother, me too. And before we go into the subject at hand, tell us about Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas.

Sure. Grace Life Church is a Reformed Baptistic church. We're actually in Plano, Texas, about 30 minutes north of Dallas.

We've been congregating together for 12 years. The church has been graced by God and growing together, and the gospel growing together in the unity of Jesus Christ and seeking to make disciples.

Great. And by the way, it does say Dallas on the Fellowship Conference New England website. Well, the name of the church is

Grace Life Church of Dallas, but our actual meeting place is in Plano, so you are correct in that, yes.

Okay. And by the way, I believe, if I'm wrong on this,

I've been spreading false information, but I believe you are somehow affiliated with Grace Life Church in Lake City, Florida, are you not?

Yes. So, in a sense of brothers, churches of like -minded and fellowship, yes.

So there are probably, I would imagine, 15 to 20 Grace Life Churches throughout the

U .S. It's not a denomination per se of any sort, but just like -minded brethren who come together in areas of ministry.

And so, yes, the brothers out there in Lakeland, Florida would be a part of the same group there of Lake City, Florida.

Yes, Lake City, Florida. Yes. And the name is specifically chosen, though, because they want to identify publicly with some kind of camaraderie.

I am really messing up today. Some kind of connection and fellowship with the other churches that wear the name.

Now, of course, there perhaps are hundreds of thousands of churches named Grace Life that have nothing to do with you, but there are a number of churches that specifically and purposefully chose that name because they wanted to identify with each other.

That is correct. You are correct in that. And I don't know if you even know this, but Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, they have a radio station,

Grace Life Radio, that airs this program every day in a rerun format. I am aware of that, yes, brother.

In fact, they air twice a day, in morning drive and evening drive. So we are very happy about that.

So they will be hearing, the Lake City, Florida folks will be hearing you tomorrow. Amen. Wonderful.

And I don't believe we had time to do this the last time, because the last time you were only on for a short portion of our program.

You were on after another guest was on. And I don't know if you gave your personal testimony of salvation, but even if you did,

I think it is going to be very helpful. I typically ask guests to do this if they have not done it before, especially.

And if you could tell us what kind of a religious upbringing you had, if any, and what providential circumstances arose in your life by the sovereign hand of God that drew you to himself and then eventually saved you.

Amen, brother. I would be happy to boast in Christ. I was graced to grow up in a home where the

Bible was taught. My parents sacrificially put me through a

Christian education from kindergarten through college. I went to Bible college. At a young age, raised in a repeated prayer type of salvation where, you know,

I'll repeat a prayer. I made a profession of faith at age seven, and I would have affirmed the truth that the

Bible is the Word of God, that Jesus Christ is the only Savior, and I didn't want to go to hell.

So at a young age, you know, not wanting to go to hell, I made a profession of faith and was baptized.

You know, I stayed in the Church in the sense of attended regularly, but I was not converted at this time.

And what you just said is very typical of Christian homes, especially in the South, is it not?

Where you have, it's almost, even amongst Baptists in the

Bible Belt, they almost behave like paedo -Baptists in that they baptize their children without real credible evidence of repentance and faith.

They're just a little older than the babies are. Well, it's very similar, and I agree with you, and it's done much harm to the

Church in that sense, and it's done much harm to individuals. And pastorally, you know, looking back on that, it's something that I'm very mindful of and careful of as it pertains to pastoring the congregation right now.

But I grew up in the Church in that sense, so very moral if I would have been compared to what we might think of as a worldly individual.

I wasn't into partying or drinking and so forth. But in regards to marks of conversion, marks of repentance,

I had no desire for the Word of God. I had no love for Christ and no love for the

Church. I didn't want people to go to hell, so there were times when I would tell people about Jesus and try to get them to repeat a prayer or something like that.

And so, you know, as I look back on it, I can clearly see now that I had a knowledge of Jesus, a mental assent of Jesus, a knowledge of the

Bible. Things I'm thankful for, Chris, my father read me the Bible regularly, so the

Bible was a discussion in our home. But I can remember sitting in Church services or even at the

Christian school I was at, and just finding Church boring, finding chapel services boring, wanting really nothing to do with truth.

And again, yes, I wanted to preserve my soul from going to hell, but that's not the evidence of a

Christian. There's no one in the world that truly desires to face the consequences of their sin, and so that's not a mark of conversion.

An atheist doesn't want to go to hell. The mark of conversion is newness of life and Jesus Christ and the love for Jesus Christ, and those were absent.

In my private life, in different areas of immorality, I was very immoral, living a very self -centered life.

I went away to college on an athletic scholarship. I chose to go to a Bible college, and I just thanked the

Lord for His grace and providence in that. And no way to speak of myself, but I had athletic scholarships to some of the highest -ranked soccer colleges in the nation, and ended up going to a

Division I Christian school, and God and His providence led me there. I went through all three, four years of school.

Again, rarely attending Church. When I did attend, it was boring. Convocation at the school was of no interest to me.

Took, what, a year and a half, almost two years of Bible college classes. So I had a working knowledge of truth, but not a love for truth, not a embracing of truth as truth.

Lived my life the way I wanted and viewed the Word of God as something that was keeping me from all that was fun.

At the same time, believing I'm a Christian because I pray to Claire, I would nod my head to some truth about Jesus in the

Bible, and there were times of conviction and sin where I would say, oh,

I don't want to go to hell. I'll pray the prayer again. So that was the reality of my life. In God's grace,

I met my wife in college. We were married a week after we graduated.

We moved to Dallas, Texas, and we've been here for a little over 20 years now, 21 years actually.

We came to Dallas seeking work and found work in the telecom industry.

We were attending a church that, how will I put it, was moral in its teaching, was shallow in its gospel presentation, and like you and I just mentioned, the understanding of salvation was the repeating of a prayer and walking an aisle.

While at this church, the Bible, I participated in Sunday school teachings and different things, activities, contributed to the church, but in regards to my heart, still cold to the

Lord. One day, and I know it sounds cliche, but I picked up my

Bible, which was not a regular thing, and I opened the book of 1 John, and obviously the

Spirit's leading in this. I began to read in 1 John, if you love the world or the things in the world, the love of the

Father is not in you. And Chris, at that moment,

I became fully aware that I am one who loves the world. I love the things of the world.

I view God as keeping me from all that was good in the world, and I realized that a love for the world and the love for God cannot coexist, and I acknowledged that I love the world, and I came to the immediate realization,

I'm lost. I'm lost. And I really didn't have a category of what to do.

All I knew at that time was the prayer, and I didn't even repeat the so -called prayer that's been told.

I cried out to God to have mercy on me, looking to Christ, and at that moment,

I was saved, and the evidence of that is that there was a transformation of life, and I know that that is, you know, not as clear in some people.

They can't name a day. I can name a day. I know when it was. I remember the day. I remember sitting in my closet.

I remember everything around me changing in perspective. I remember the affections, the desires of my heart changing.

The Word of God, Jesus Christ, became my chief treasure, and I was married at the time, and my wife at the time was not converted, and she didn't know what had happened to Nisha, but I was just being overly religious, because from that day on,

I would wake up in the morning wanting to pray, wanting to read, wanting to know more about this God, wanting to understand, and you know, there was division in our home for a while until God graciously saved my wife, and so God in His grace had kindness up on me, and I had a great upbringing.

I'm thankful to my parents for all that they did for me, but no doubt that salvation is a work of God.

It is a miracle of the heart that brings about transformation, and Chris, without that transformation, even if you affirm some doctrinal truth, you can have no assurance that you are one of God.

Praise God. One thing I want to ask you, even though it is not on the topic we are discussing, but something that you said intrigued me, as it always does when

I hear about this. What was it that your wife found so annoying, so disturbing, so unsettling, so interfering in your marriage, that when you became a

Christian, she was saddened by that, and there was a wedge there.

The reason why I'm asking this is that it always perplexes me when either a man or a woman gets saved, and they are the only one at that moment, or for a period of time, the saved ones in the marriage.

It makes me wonder why the unsaved spouse has a difficult time with it, if indeed,

I don't know this for certain in your case, but you could fill in the details as far as this is concerned, but especially when the spouse who becomes a

Christian becomes a better spouse. Like for instance, especially with women.

When women get saved, and their husbands are unbelievers. In fact, the woman who led me to Christ back in the 80s, she later discovered that she was not generally converted herself, but then sometime in the 90s, or actually the early 2000s

I believe, she really truly knew she was saved, and her husband couldn't stand it, and he left her.

And in fact, he said specifically as she was sitting on the front porch with a Christian lady friend, if God's that way, and he pointed to the house,

I'm this way, and he pointed to the end of the driveway, and he left never to see her again other than the courtroom when he filed for divorce.

But the thing that strikes me as odd is like in the case with a woman getting saved, very often,

I mean you might have a woman who gets saved and she's a nag, and she's a pest, and she's relentless, but in the case of my friend, and many women, they become more submissive to their husbands.

They become more trustworthy. I think a husband would be a lot less nervous about his wife committing adultery or something like that if she was a dedicated

Christian, and on and on. And of course, in the reverse side, you have men who become

Christians, and they are more loving and dedicated than they've ever been. They are more attentive to their wife's needs than they've ever been.

And you wonder, why are these spouses so sickened by this that they want to leave? Can you give any example as to why this upset your wife?

Yes, it reminds me again of just how gracious God has been. To me, in that, in saving my wife, and there are many in our church who have a saved, who are saved and have an unbelieving spouse, and they're always high on the prayer list because that's a very difficult situation.

I was not preachy with my wife, and not that I didn't share the gospel with her and what the

Lord was doing. I did, but I wasn't, like you said, in a nagging, preachy way to her.

I think at the root of it, you have the difference of light and darkness. Where before, you know, a moment before, we are two people of darkness with a veneer of morality, believing we're good yet and still enjoying our fleshly desires, if you will.

And in that conversion, the Spirit of Christ comes and regenerates and then abides in the believer.

And what's present when you have a professing Christian who's not truly converted and a genuine person who has now genuinely been converted by the grace of God and regeneration, you have before the false convert a reality of Christianity.

And so now they're seeing something that's genuine and real, that is absent in them.

They can't deny it, and so they're forced to do one of two things. Either acknowledge that they're not saved and repent and believe and be saved, or reject what is in front of them as either false or just being overly religious.

And so I think you're forced to deal with that, and all too often, sadly, people reject that because of pride.

I know that I'm saved because I've prayed a prayer, I'm in a church or whatever. And the maybe a fruit example, so that would be the root of these things, but here's a fruit example.

Whether it was our favorite TV shows of the time, or whether it was every Friday for my wife and I prior to conversion was

Date Night, and we still have Date Night, but before, Date Night was whatever the next movie out is.

We go to eat dinner and we go to the new movie out. Irregardless of what it is or what its ratings are, we just went and had fun, and you know, yes, when they would use a tirade of vulgar language, or take a

Northlander thing, we'd say, oh, I wish they wouldn't do that, but we'd continue on and press on because we just wanted to see the movie.

I can remember the next Friday coming up, Date Night, movie time, and I turned to her and I said,

I can't go. And I'm not over here saying that you can't go see a movie as a

Christian, but what I meant was, I don't have a desire to put those things before my eyes anymore.

The next time our recorded favorite TV show came up and I said, I don't want to watch that.

I'll be with you. I want to spend time with you, but I don't want to go watch that anymore. So now we'll begin to reach into the things that she and I used to enjoy doing, and now here

I am as a Christian, which she professes to be, and I'm saying, I can't do that anymore.

I'm convicted about that. That will not honor and please and glorify the Lord. And so now it's beginning to impact her and her daily living.

She would tell me also that, you know, I would rise up early in the morning, not out of obligation, out of joy.

I wanted to speak the Lord and the reading of the Word and the study of the Word or in prayer, and she would tell me how irritated she would get lying in bed hearing me get up to go commune with the

Lord. And so by God's grace, again, she's been converted, and we share a marriage and union in Christ now, but I can remember her sharing those things and the frustration they were, because I think what was before her now was the reality of a new creation whose treasure is

Jesus Christ, and it was reflecting upon the falseness of her

Christianity. Wow. You know, you reminded me, your situation reminded me of when

I was saved. I was in a relationship with a young lady that was not a

Christian. I was not a Christian, obviously, when I started the relationship. We met at a punk rock club, and we immediately hit it off, and we started dating, and we're fairly serious.

I got saved about six months later, maybe a year later, and I went with her to the punk rock club after the salvation experience.

And what I used to love, I used to just absolutely love being in those types of places.

I was literally getting physically sick, and there was a lounge area. I had to sit down on the couch, and I felt like I was in the city of Sodom or something like that.

Everything else that was surrounding me in previous circumstances was entertaining to me.

All the women, or should I say many of the women were dressed like prostitutes. And you know, you would even occasionally see, although it's nothing like it is today, you would occasionally see people that would look like they were drag queens or whatever.

And although that was even disturbing back then, it was more of something to laugh about than to be disturbed by.

Then after my conversion, it was just utterly sickening to be in there. And I remember telling my girlfriend,

I'm sorry, I can't come back there. This is the last time

I'm going with you. And she was shocked. She was disturbed. And rather than having like some kind of formal, official breakup, we just drifted apart and just stopped seeing each other and calling each other.

And I called her the day before, or at least a few days before I was baptized.

And I invited her to the baptism. And she said, Oh, that's sweet. But I'm going to an Iggy Pop concert that night.

And that was the last time I spoke with her. And Laureen, if you're out there listening, I hope all is well with you.

And I hope that you do come to Christ and that you have an eternity with him awaiting you.

In fact, it was interesting with her. She dabbled with the

Jehovah's Witnesses for a while. And she was taking care of her mother as a teenage girl who eventually died of cancer.

And she did have the thought of eternity on her mind. And there was something about eternity that mattered to her.

But she was terrified of religion and Christianity. I think that Jehovah's Witnesses may have had something to do with that.

I don't know. Sure. But I can remember the first and only time I took her to church.

She was sitting next to me in the pew, physically trembling like a dog that just came in out of a cold rain or something.

And I'm sorry for that analogy, if you're listening, Laureen. But she was shaking like a leaf.

That's a better way of putting it. And I could feel her. I mean, it was so distracting and noticeable.

And then what made it worse is as we were leaving after the service, my pastor said, hi, what's your name?

And she said, Laureen. And that's a very unusual name. And he said, my, that's an unusual name.

I can't believe you're here because I was praying that a Laureen would be here tonight. And yet it was a different Laureen.

She didn't come and you came. I find that remarkable. And then after we left, she said, I'm never going back there again.

She was freaked out by that. Wow. And by the way, I have to let you know, that was not a charismatic or Pentecostal church.

It was a Reformed Baptist church. So that made it even more remarkable that my pastor was praying that way.

Well, I think it's good that unbelievers come into the worship of God and there should be a sense of their sin, their sense of eternity, a sense of God and His holiness, and there should be trembling.

We would welcome unbelievers in obviously, but I think that that's good. That's a good sign. So Lord willing, like you said, that she would be saved.

Well, I want you to also, even though we're going to be announcing it several times throughout the program,

I want you to tell our listeners about the Fellowship Conference New England, where you are on the roster, the speaking roster.

Yes. And if I could say one more thing, Chris, just about that true and false conversion. Sure. You know,

I look back at our lives. Jesus Christ was a part of our lives, as professing

Christians, my wife and I. And I think that transformation, when God changes us at the core, at the heart, through regeneration,

His Spirit is put within us, Jesus Christ becomes our life. And when something's a part of your life, it's just an added circle on, and then something is the substance and identity of your life.

That is such a radical, supernatural transformation, that although people may not embrace it when they see it, they can't deny it.

It's like when Jesus Christ is a means for you, or is

He the end for you? And when someone, by grace, again, has been changed, and Jesus Christ is no longer just a means to my happy life, or the thing that I want

Him to give me, the genie in the bottle, but He becomes the end. He is the treasure that we joyfully give all things up for, and by the field.

You can't deny that, and when you don't have that, you become aware, I don't have that.

And so again, it's either the embracing of who you are, a false convert, and repenting and believing and being saved, or it is the rejection of that truth, or the person whose very life and presence of Christ in them is a representation of that.

And so God, have mercy on us and help us in these matters, but praise

God again for His grace towards me and my wife. Amen. Regarding the conference, yes, the

Fellowship Conference, I mean, I think this is my fourth or fifth year here. I'm looking forward to it.

If you want information on it, it's fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

By the way, it's your fifth time being there. Well, thank you. That's what it says on the website, anyway. Okay, amen.

I lose track of the years there. It's August 2nd through the 4th, coming up here in just a little bit.

You can go online and register, and it'll be held at the Deering Center Community Church.

They host the event for us, but there is a church plant that's been planted there through Providence Chapel as a result of this conference.

That is Redeeming Grace Fellowship, and they're there in Portland, and so you can go and check them out,

Redeeming Grace Fellowship. A group of dear saints there have had the privilege of going and preaching at that church, and dear families and brothers and sisters in Christ there.

So we'd love to have everyone out. You'll have wonderful fellowship, as it says there, fellowship. There's a lot of time set aside for personal conversation to sit and talk with the speakers there and have good fellowship, biblical preaching.

We have this year Tim Conway coming, Matt Conlinson, myself, and Nate Pickowitz there, who we're excited about.

Nate has been there a couple of years now, and he's kind of a local guy, if you will. He has a church about,

I would say, I don't know, an hour from Portland, and it's wonderful to have someone there. Nate, I think you're having a mom, if you haven't already.

Yeah, I've had Nate on, and he's also going to be on again this Thursday.

He will be on immediately following Dr. Stephen J. Nichols, who is the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late

R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. Wonderful, brother. That sounds like a wonderful day, so make sure everyone tune in for that.

But you will be there for August 2nd through the 4th, good Bible preaching, wonderful fellowship and union in Christ.

And so unbelievers can come if you're interested to hear about what the gospel is, what

Christianity is about. Believers, pastors, come, and our prayer is that God would revive

New England. If he can work, just like Nate's book says, reviving New England, that he would do just that. Well, I'm hoping, especially all of my

Maine listeners attend this. I know that I do have a number of listeners in Maine and New England, so please try to get there if you are physically able to get there.

Amen. And that's fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

And I am so thankful for Mack Tomlinson, the pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, for being so generous.

The congregation was so generous to Iron Trip and Zion recently. We were in a financial crisis and they sent us a very generous gift that enabled us to pay some vital bills.

And I just want to thank God for Pastor Mack and the folks at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

I look forward to having him back in the show soon. It was so nice to have fellowship with him in Pennsylvania recently when he attended the

Banner of Truth conference where I was also in attendance. We are going to our first break now.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

We are going to be discussing as our major theme, unity amidst our diversity, how to passionately pursue and defend truth while striving to maintain unity in our local churches.

However, since Pastor Jesse Barrington is a pastor, I will permit pastoral questions that you may have for him and I can understand, especially in those cases, that you might want to remain anonymous.

In fact, please do remain anonymous if it's something about a personal and private matter, especially if it involves other folks in your congregation and so on.

But other than that, if it's not personal and private, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

And that's chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away.

God willing, we will be right back after these messages from our sponsors with more of Jesse Barrington.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in. Our guest today on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for the full two hours, with about 90 minutes to go, is

Jesse Barrington, a conference speaker and pastor at Grace Life Church of Dallas, Texas, technically in Plano, Texas.

And today we are addressing unity amidst our diversity, how to passionately pursue and defend truth while striving to maintain unity in our local churches.

We're also going to be promoting throughout the broadcast the Fellowship Conference New England coming up August 2nd through the 4th.

And something just occurred to me, Brother Barrington, that we have to get an event at some point.

We really have to pull this off. We have to get Tim Conway and Steve Martin to be at the same conference on the roster, so we can advertise it as Tim Conway and Steve Martin at such -and -such conference and just sit back and watch how many people show up.

I would definitely pay to see that one, Brother, so I'm in for it. And Steve Martin, for those of our listeners who don't know, he is the

Dean of Students at the new IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas, the

Reformed Baptist Seminary that is launching its first semester this fall. He has also been a pastor for many, many years, and he's well -known amongst

Reformed Baptists as being a powerful proclaimer of truth and a very humble servant of Christ.

And I'm glad that I am developing a friendship with him, and it has been so nice to interview him. And also, I shared

Fellowship with him as well at the recent Banner of Truth Conference, and it was a great joy.

Well, you picked the subject that we are discussing today, unity amidst our diversity, how to passionately pursue and defend truth while striving to maintain unity in our local churches.

Obviously, since you picked that subject, you believe that there is a problem maintaining both the pursuit and defense of truth while striving to maintain unity in our local churches.

If you could explain exactly what the circumstances are, not only to you locally, but what you've observed in the body of Christ in general, that would lead you to want to discuss this today.

Amen, Brother. Obviously, it's a problem in Scripture. Throughout Scripture, we see a call for unity to local churches.

So you see these calls to maintain unity, to be of one mind, to agree together.

We also see a reality of diversity in local churches all throughout

Scripture. When I speak of diversity, we'll get more into this. I'm speaking more than just, you know, tribe, tongue, and nation.

I'm speaking about diversity within those tribes, tongues, and nations. And obviously, that tribe, tongue, and nation adds a level of diversity that's a hot topic and obviously always being worked through.

But beyond that, when we get into things like maturity of the believer and understanding of different doctrines, that creates another opportunity for disunity to come into the

Church. And in addition to that, we see in Scripture the call for the

Church to be what it is. It is a pillar and buttress of truth.

We are proclaimers of truth. We are lovers of truth. We are pursuers of truth. We are defenders of truth.

And so it's not either or. And unfortunately, we see an either or manifesting all the time.

We see those who would say, well, in the name of love, let's go right on doctrine. And we would all stand up and say, wait a minute, no, that's not right.

And then we see some, and this is where I would say that I'll use me as an example or Grace Life, where as a

Reformed Church, we're kind of known for our doctrine. Reformed churches are focused on doctrine, high in doctrine, and they should be, and we can't stop that.

But the potential danger there is, hey, focus on doctrine and the absence of love.

And so, well, which one is it? It's neither. It's not doctrine -heavy love -light or love -heavy and doctrine -light.

It's both and. It is the vigilant, diligent, consistent pursuit of truth and defense of truth, while at the same time maintaining unity through love.

And so, yes, I see it in Scripture. It's something that I think every pastor

I've ever talked to experiences. I've experienced it. Me and my co -pastor Phil have experienced it.

And I speak on this as one studying, as one learning, as one growing, and one continuing to be sharpened by Scripture personally and corporately in our

Church of Grace Life. But as I go around and preach at different conferences and conversation begins, inevitably we'll hear about a situation that pertains to this.

And so we're all seeking to glorify God. How do we do that? And I believe the Bible gives us the answer.

Praise God. Let's see, we do have a listener, Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

And she says, do you think that most church splits that you are aware of actually arise from matters that are far less important than the gospel and the pillars of the faith?

From what I have witnessed personally, they tend to be trivial matters, at least comparative trivial.

And people are failing to put the interests of others above their own interests.

There seems to be always selfishness at the root of these problems and a lack of humility and a lack to let someone else have an option rather than yourself.

I couldn't agree more, Chris. Again, you can speak to your experience.

I'll speak some of mine. But when I see people leave churches, other churches or this church here at Grace Life, it's not over, you know, salvific matters.

And I want to be careful not to minimize any aspect of God's Word. But usually people are not leaving

Reformed Baptist churches, if we're going to speak about maybe the group that we're in, because someone's denying the deity of Jesus Christ or the humanity of Christ or his substitutionary atonement or salvation by grace through faith alone.

Usually it is another doctrine which, yes, is important, but here's the concern, if I could kind of spell this out.

Once you begin to find your identity, whether that's individually or as a church, or your unity or your fellowship in something other than Jesus Christ in the

Gospel, inevitably what you begin to do is you begin to minimize the unity and fellowship that we do have in Jesus Christ in the

Gospel. Let me share that with you in this way. If you come to me,

Chris, and you say, Jesse, I know that we have Jesus Christ in common, we have this whole Gospel thing in common, but in this other area of doctrine, we don't see eye to eye, so I can't be in fellowship with you.

Think of what we just said. Jesus Christ and the Gospel, we have that in common, but set it aside, this other thing, we don't see eye to eye.

And whether you mean to or not, when you begin to go down that path, number one is, where do you draw the line?

Because once you start dividing from other genuine Christians over matters that are not pertaining to the

Gospel and Christ and sociology and salvation, where does it end? And if you're going to be consistent, it really doesn't end.

And number two is, what you do is you begin to minimize that genuine supernatural unity that we do have in Jesus Christ in the

Gospel. You can set that aside and focus on this. And what you're doing when you do that, inevitably, is you're finding your identity, your unity, and your fellowship in something other than Jesus Christ and the

Gospel. Yes, that is tragic. And thank you so much,

Susan, Margaret, and Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, for the very insightful question and commentary.

Let's see here, we have an anonymous listener who asks,

I know that sometimes when a church split occurs, and I know this from personal experience, it is over the pastor's preaching and teaching and shepherding.

When is it appropriate to criticize a pastor privately if he is teaching things and preaching about things that are technically accurate and biblically true, but there seems to be a total lack of passion in his manner of preaching, there seems to be no urgency, and it is more like a lecture.

Is that a reason enough to bring a word of criticism to that pastor, and is it reason enough for a person ever to leave a church?

Great question. You know, I just finished a three -day workshop with Steve Lawson from One Passion Ministries.

Yes, I'm very familiar with Brother Steve, yeah. Expositional, gospel -centered preaching, and wow, if you want to talk about someone passionately preaching the

Word, I don't know that it gets greater than Steve Lawson. And he addressed that in the conference. I don't want to put words in his mouth, so I'll say it.

There is a difference between preaching and teaching, and there is a call in Scripture that Paul calls

Timothy to preach the Word. And so there is a difference, and one of the things

Dr. Lawson pointed out in that was that that's what we're called to in that, and not to minimize the gift of teaching necessary and needed, but he distinguished it from preaching.

Is it a reason to leave a church? I don't think it's a reason to leave a church, no. I think that God works through the preaching and teaching of His Word, empowered by the

Spirit. But one of the things I think you can do is begin to pray. Pray for your pastor.

I don't think it's wrong for people to come and address their pastor, but you do it in a biblical manner, acknowledging his role and responsibility from Scripture.

And so I want to be careful in every situation not to counsel someone to leave a church or stay in a church, but if someone is faithfully teaching the

Word of God and you desire someone with more passion, I don't think it's a reason to leave.

This is one of the areas, Chris, where I think listening to other pastors on the internet cannot be good.

Meaning, very often, I'm not accusing this emailer of doing this, but very often I see we all have a list of preachers that if we have time to listen to a sermon, there are some that we would say that this brother really seems to edify me.

And then inevitably what happens is we begin to compare the local pastor that God has given to us in His providence to this internet pastor or this conference pastor, and I don't think that's fair.

Right. I can remember the very first, or one of the very first, non -Catholic churches

I began to regularly attend before I was saved, because I was raised Roman Catholic, and during my years of searching,

I began to attend a little Pentecostal church in Lindenhurst, Long Island, and I left there because I was very uncomfortable with a lot of the things that were going on there, some of the more, how to put this charitably, colorful expressions of worship that took place there.

But I can still remember this pastor there standing up on a pew, and he was pacing back and forth on the front pew, and he was very upset because people were giving too much of their money to people like Jimmy Swaggart and the other televangelists, and he was shouting out at the top of his lungs,

Jimmy Swaggart ain't gonna be there holding your hand in the hospital, and Jim Bakker's not gonna be there holding your hand at your mommy and daddy's graveside, and he was going on, and even though there was something colorful and humorous about it, there was a lot of truth in what he was saying.

Yes, there is. Ill -motived there from him, but accurate in what he's saying in that that pastor is not shepherding your soul.

That pastor is not there praying for you, and pastors need to be qualified and need to be gifted in the area of teaching, but they don't have to fit your preferences for preaching and teaching.

And so if you have a disqualified man, very different story. If you have a man who is not gifted in teaching, and I know that can become a subjective reality at some level, but if he is faithfully expounding the word of God and you just like to see more passion in him,

I would encourage you to labor on your knees and pray passion into his soul. Should it be something, as the questioner asked, that should be brought privately to him?

I mean, is that something that is worth offending your pastor over? Is it something that is worth hurting his feelings and possibly causing a wedge between the two of you, even though the pastor might be a godly person?

He's a human being with sin in his life, and he, you know, may cause a wedge. Is it worth taking that risk, or is it something that would be properly done and perhaps even used of God to correct an error in that pastor's manner of preaching?

I don't know that there's a broad answer, a general answer for this. I think there's a circumstantial answer.

I would say if you have labored on your knees for this, brother, and fervently done so steadfastly, then

I think there is a time and a place to in humility approach him in these matters, but do it in a, as you noted, a careful way.

And so, yes, there is a time and a place for that, but it wouldn't be without a long time of interceding for this pastor that God would, you know,

Luke chapter 24, the heart -burning experience that Jesus Christ, when

He shared truth, didn't the truth burn in our hearts, which is a work of the

Word of God and the Spirit of God, and pray for the Spirit of God to, as Lloyd -Jones says, ignite that truth in his heart on fire.

All people are passionate about something, and as preachers of the

Word, teachers of the Word, pastors, if we're going to be passionate about anything, it should be about the

Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so pray for him in that and labor for him.

But at some point, yes, I think there's a way that you can in humility approach that and try to do it in more of an encouraging manner, and be careful and mindful of your words in that.

But I would give this word of caution. Like you could encourage him by saying, I want to thank you especially for your recorded sermons, because they help me fall asleep at night.

Is that what you would do? Well, not exactly like that. We have to go to a break right now.

It's our elongated break. It's 12 minutes because of the fact that Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, 90 .1

FM, requires a 12 -minute break between our two major segments so that they can air their own commercials and public service announcements and other things.

So please be patient during this break. Please take this time to write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can patronize them, but also take this time to write down questions for Jesse Barrington to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Don't go away. We'll be back with Jesse Barrington right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania. Please tell the folks at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals that you heard about this event from Chris Arnson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Then coming up in January, one of my favorite of all events that I cannot wait to attend again.

This will be my third time manning an exhibitors booth at the

G3 conference to be held at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.

That's Thursday, January 17th through Saturday, January 19th.

By the way, there will be a Spanish conference on Wednesday, January 16th, so let your Spanish -speaking friends and pastor friends and so on know about that.

But I would love for you to be there. Again, I meet so many people there at the

G3 conference that listen to the show, and I also introduce people for the first time to this wonderful program that God has given me the ability to host.

And I hope to see you there either for the first time or once again at the G3 conference at the

Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia. The speakers this

January include Paul Washer, John Piper, Stephen J. Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, who

I believe is the most powerful preacher on the planet Earth alive today, pastor of Kobwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and chancellor of the

African Christian University there. Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, who is the executive director of Grace to You, the ministry of John MacArthur.

Josh Bice, who is the director of the G3 conference, which by the way stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory.

Todd Friel of Richard TV and Radio, who's going to be my guest in August again on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

The aforementioned Stephen J. Nichols, who is my guest along with Nate Pickowitz this Thursday, June 28th.

Don Curran and Cindy Curran. Don has been a speaker at the Fellowship Conference New England on a number of occasions, and I'm sure you will enjoy what he and his wife have to say.

Owen Stran, who is on the faculty at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, he's my guest tomorrow on Iron Trip and Zion, June 27th, so I hope you listen tomorrow.

If you'd like to register either to attend the G3 conference or to register for your own exhibitors booth like I am going to be manning there,

God willing, go to G3conference .com, G3conference .com, and please tell the folks at the

G3 conference that you heard about them from Chris Arns and on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Last but not least is the time that I dislike intensely, this part of the program, but it's something that needs to be done.

It's when I ring, when I shake or rattle my tin cup and beg you for money.

Iron Trip and Zion Radio is in need of your donations and advertising dollars in order to remain on the air.

I thank God for all of you who answered the the SOS call recently when we had nearly exhausted, in fact we really did exhaust all of our funds, and the donations ran nearly completely dry, and then all of a sudden we had a rush of donations and advertising come in, and I'm so thankful to God for that.

I'm so thankful to God for our new advertisers that will begin shortly, God willing. The IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas is our new annual sponsor on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

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If you want to advertise with us, whether it's your church, parachurch ministry, business, professional practice, whatever it is, a special event you're having, as long as it's compatible with the theology we express here, doesn't need to be identical, just needs to be compatible, we would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we surely do need the advertising dollars.

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Use that same email address ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Send me a question for our guest today,

Jesse Barrington. Jesse Barrington is our guest today for the remaining 45 minutes or so, and he is pastor of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, and he and what is this actual city again?

It's in Plano. Plano, and it's just it's called Grace Life Church of Dallas, Texas, because it's not that far away.

Right. Excuse me, and we are discussing unity amidst our diversity, how to passionately pursue and defend truth while striving to maintain unity in our local churches.

Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, city, and state, and country of residence.

We have Michael in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and he's asking a question that is a bit off topic, although it does involve unity between different churches, not necessarily unity within a church, within one church.

Michael in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, says something that he's asking something or saying something that I actually do not view as being true in my experience.

It may be true in his experience, but all of my life as a Christian I have not seen this to be true.

But his question is, why is it that a conservative Presbyterian church will share the pulpit with a

Baptist, but the reverse rarely happens? And I'm in the

PCA, and that's why I'm asking. As I was just saying, all my life as a Christian, I have seen, in fact,

I may have seen more Presbyterians fill the pulpit for conferences and guest speakers and so on in the

Reformed Baptist churches that I have been a member of. More Presbyterians possibly than Baptists.

There could be a close tie there, but I don't know if you have a response to this, or if you see the same thing that our listener is asking, or if you agree with what

I have experienced. Yeah, Chris, I'll speak to my experience as well.

My experience has been the opposite as well. I'm not to say I'm in a

Baptistic Church, so most of my attendance has been in those types of churches, but I am not aware of that being a one -sided issue there.

And so I can't really speak to it, although I don't see any issue. I would gladly bring numerous

Presbyterians into the pulpit of grace life because they're brothers in Christ, and I think there's a given understanding in regards to, you know, doctrines that they would not preach in our pulpit, and we would not preach in theirs, and we would, for the sake of unity of the local church, we would be gospel -centered and strive to be faithful to that.

So I haven't experienced that, but I don't know of any Baptistic preacher that I know of that would not open the pulpit to a gospel -centered, faithful, expositor of the

Word who was Presbyterian. Well actually, I know a lot of Baptists that would not let a

Presbyterian ascend into their pulpit, but they're not Reformed Baptists. Okay, there you go. That's a good correction of a statement there.

In fact, most of the Fundamentalist Baptist friends that I have that are pastors, although I love them dearly and have enjoyed friendship and fellowship with them, very few of them, if any of the ones that I know, would ever allow a

Presbyterian, and many of them would never allow even a Reformed Baptist to preach.

It depends, like for instance, my friend Richard Bennett, who's a Reformed Baptist, he's a former

Roman Catholic priest, and the Fundamentalists seem to very much enjoy

Richard's preaching, and there's something about him that they tolerate, even though he's clearly

Calvinistic. I've even seen him preach against altar calls in Fundamentalist Baptist churches.

But yeah, in fact, that may be what our listener is experiencing, because he just says, with a

Baptist, he says, why is it that a conservative Presbyterian church will share the pulpit with a

Baptist, but the reverse is rarely true, or the reverse rarely happens? It may be that he is experiencing the refusal by Fundamentalist Baptists to allow a

Paedo -Baptist of any kind. Correct. Sorry we can't be of more help to you, but anyway,

Michael in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, I believe you are a first -time questioner, and if so, you have won a new

New American Standard Bible. So give me your full mailing address, and we will have

CVBBS .com ship that new Bible out to you, compliments of the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible, who just renewed their contract, and also compliments of CVBBS .com,

who will ship that to you at no cost to you or to Arnold Sharpen's Iron Radio. I want to make sure that we get to some of the main points of diversity that you are thinking of, and even developing this subject, that evokes your plea for unity in the midst of those diverse situations.

I don't know if you initially were thinking of theological or doctrinal or racial or ethnic.

I know that you and I would agree that really, technically, there is only one race, the human race.

These artificial distinctions that we give because of melanin content in the skin are really ridiculous, but as far as what is the diversity that you are speaking of that calls for more unity?

Well, I think it's a broad, it would call for all diversity, it would call for more unity within the true

Church of Jesus Christ, the universal Church, and then expressed in local churches. Pointedly, I'm speaking about doctrinal differences, though.

When you think of this, Chris, you have a Church very diverse in doctrinal understanding.

What I mean by that is, you have a million people are being saved and added to the local churches, and so someone new to the faith, whether they were raised in bad doctrine or they're just new into any form of faith, they come into the

Church, they have a very limited knowledge of doctrine. Outside of that, you have all of us are still growing in doctrine, so I know you and I would both fully admit and acknowledge, we hope it never ends.

We need to always be reforming, we need to always be growing, being sharpened as you were, and so if you and I, you probably heard the statement before, if the you of today doesn't look at the you of five years ago and call that person a heretic, you're not growing fast enough.

Well, that may be a little bit loose there, but you get the idea that we need to be growing, and I think if you and I sat down and had an hour conversation off -air, we would say, hey, where were you a five years ago in doctrines and where are you at now?

We would see some changes, and that's a good thing. We need to be growing through the preaching of the

Word, through the reading and meditation of the Word, and through the name of your program, Iron Sharpening Iron, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, in our local churches and outside, sharing truth.

This is the means that God's given us to grow. Well, here's the question, then. What do you do when you carefully choose a church based on your understanding of doctrine at the time, you're in that church, you're a part of that church, you're a member of that church, and you grow in an area of truth, and you arrive at a different doctrinal conclusion on a subject that is non -salvific?

What do we do there? And so often what I keep seeing happening is people saying, well,

I can't be in fellowship anymore. I have to go find a church that affirms me in this area of doctrine, and my concern with that is multifold.

One is, we don't see that in the New Testament, and I know there weren't as many options of churches then, and I understand that, but what

Paul recommends over and over in Scripture is, he calls them to maintain the unity that they do have, and he calls them to love.

And so it doesn't mean we set doctrine aside. It means we're all growing together.

We all have bad doctrine in our understanding right now. We don't know where it is, or we repent of it right away, but we're all growing.

We're arriving at different understandings, and so how do we maintain this unity as we pursue truth and defend truth?

And I think the answer is what Paul gives us in 1st Corinthians 13, among other places, is love.

And you look at 1st Corinthians 13, if we want to kind of focus in now on that text. I find it interesting, one, it's the most elaborate treatise of love in the entire

Bible, and it's written to a local church. It's written to a local church that's in the midst of diversity and at the, almost at a place of disunity.

If you look at chapter 12 and chapter 14, what it falls in between. And it's like if Paul sets that in the middle of those two chapters, right into a local church, and what he calls them to, it's amazing that it's not written to a husband and a wife.

When we think of love, typically we think of the husband and wife relationship. It's written to a local church in the midst of diversity, where they're called to maintain unity.

And what he calls us to, if you look at verses 1 through 3, he points out the need for love.

And if I could just read a little bit of that, if that's all right, Chris? Yeah, definitely. He says, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,

I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so to remove mountains, but have not love,

I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love,

I gain nothing. So what is Paul doing? Is he minimizing spiritual gifts? No, he just spent a whole chapter talking about how important they are.

He's going to tell them in the next chapter to pursue them. Is he minimizing doctrine? No. And he's maximizing the need for love.

And so what is it? Is it, do we pursue gifts? Do we pursue truth? Or do we pursue love?

And the answer is, it's not either or, it's both and. This is a call for you and I to pursue truth.

And I find it in verse 2 there, he says, if I have and understand all mysteries and all knowledge.

Now I don't think any of us would agree that we have all knowledge. Speak for yourself. I'm just kidding.

But Paul says, okay, let's assume that you do have all knowledge. You understand the deepest of doctrinal truths, the hard stuff.

You've got it all figured out. And he says, if you have that, but you're absent of love, you're nothing.

And so I find that amazing. None of us have all knowledge. But we may think we do at times.

But what we have to realize is, if you have everything, and this would be the summary of verses 1 through 3, if you have everything but absent of love, you really have nothing.

And so then we say, okay, I need love. I recognize the call for love. But what is love?

And he answers that for us in verses 4 through 7. And I won't go through it all. But what I find most interesting about verses 4 through 7 is this.

Paul puts before us that the genuineness and depth of our love is revealed not when we agree, but when we disagree.

And so how loving am I to my fellow church member who

I don't see eye -to -eye on a doctrine that I'm passionate about?

Paul says, in that circumstance, how you treat that brother or sister is the depth and reality of the genuineness of your love.

He says, love is long -suffering. It's patient. You see, it's in the face of antagonism.

It's in the face of adversity that love is manifested. Chris, if you and I agree on every doctrinal truth or how to live out our conviction, we don't have any areas of disagreement, then love, it may be there, no doubt, but the genuineness of it won't be revealed.

But when you and I disagree and we are forced to work through that disagreement with long -suffering, and in other words, you offend me, but I don't offend you back, and then you look at the second word in verse 4, love is kind.

So it's patient and kind. So if we apply this to a doctrinal scenario, you are holding to a doctrinal position.

It's very important. You're passionate about it. You share with me, I'm in your church.

I disagree with you. And we're both looking to Scripture, but we disagree.

Very often, I see people breaking fellowship, whether that means they leave the Church, or even within the

Church, I see this even more often, they begin to make the basis of their fellowship within the

Church, those who agree with me doctrinally or live out their convictions the same way I do.

And so what love says is, no, I suffered long with you, even when you offend me, but more than that,

I'm kind to you. I move towards you to serve you. And this is, it's really hard to do, especially when we're dealing with doctrine, which is the

Word of God. But Paul says, hey, the evidence of the depth of your love is when that person disagrees or offends you is, you don't respond back when they've offended you with offense, but rather you now move towards them to serve them of kindness.

In fact, let's pick up right where you left off there when we return from our final break. It's a much briefer break, and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, do so now or forever hold your peace because we're running out of time rapidly.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com is the address. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, and please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And by the way, Michael in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, when he sent in his full mailing address for the free

Bible that he won, he said, I'm very encouraged by the answer to my question. So you can be pleased to know,

Jesse, that you answered it wisely and appropriately and biblically. So don't go away folks, we're gonna be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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We are now in the final 20 minutes of our interview today. Time surely does fly by fast.

Our guest has been and will continue to be Jesse Barrington, a conference speaker and pastor at Grace Life, a church of Dallas, Texas, and we are discussing unity amidst our diversity, how to passionately pursue and defend truth while striving to maintain unity in our local churches.

Before the break, as you may remember, Jesse, you had just reached the point where the Apostle Paul tells us that we have to react in love when we are faced with differences that exist with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

In the overarching question, how do we maintain this unity in the midst of our diversity, it's in Ephesians chapter 4 that Paul calls us to maintain the unity, and I think this is an important point.

We are not commanded in Scripture to create unity. We are called to maintain a unity that is created supernaturally through Christ, and so Paul calls us to maintain that unity, and the

Bible, as we've mentioned, acknowledges our diversity, not only in culture or ethnicity, but also in maturity.

We have weak in faith Christians, strong in faith Christians, we have some who should be teachers by now, so we have many diversity among the mature within the church as well, and then seen in our local churches.

So how do we pursue truth consistently, diligently, while we maintain this unity? And I think the answer

Paul gives us is to do it in love, and we're being mindful of, one, how

Christ has treated us. There's always the gospel driving all the imperatives in Scripture, and as we talked about,

Paul calls us in 1 Corinthians 13, verse 4 there, to be patient or long -suffering in kind.

Think of how Christ has been patient and kind with us. We had such differences with Christ.

We were as adverse to Christ as it comes, light and darkness, and Christ was patient with us, and more than that,

He moved towards us in kindness in the gospel, and so how do we as Christians forget that the patience and kindness

Christ has shown us to another brother, a blood -brought brother or sister in Christ, who we have

Christ in the gospel in common with, yet we differ on another area of understanding of doctrine or living out of our convictions?

How do we forget what Christ has done towards us, and His love towards us, and break fellowship with this brother?

I struggle to see that, and I ask the question this, what if Jesus Christ did that to us?

Even as Christians, now what if He came to us and said, hey Jesse or Chris, I know we have this whole gospel thing in common, but you don't have the rest of your doctrine right, so I'm not going to be able to be in close fellowship with you anymore.

I'm not going to be able to have an intimate relationship with you anymore. He would have to break fellowship with all of us, because none of us have our doctrine all right.

But Christ doesn't do that. He is concerned about us growing in truth. He's given us His Word.

He's given us the Spirit. He's given us pastors and teachers and churches. He's given us to be able to understand.

He's given us brothers and sisters in Christ to sharpen one another. So it's not set doctrine aside.

It's not minimized doctrine. It's in continuing our vigilant pursuit and proclamation and defense of doctrine and truth, but remember the gospel.

Remember love. The local church, with its diversity, I refer to it as a brewing pot of sanctification.

The closer we get together as a family of faith, the more we grow deeper in our doctrine and understanding, we're going to find differences.

And this is really a test of the depth of our love on how we respond there. We work through those differences.

We discuss those differences, but the spirit in which we do it is gospel -centered love.

And let me give maybe a mark of someone who may be struggling in this and not aware of it.

One of the evidences you may be struggling with this breaking of unity within your church is that you only surround yourself with people in your local church who hold to the same convictions you do, or hold to the same doctrinal understanding that you do.

And you treat other genuine believers within the church who see it differently or are not there yet as second -class

Christians. And this is kind of another concern I begin to see, where whether it's a conviction of how you live out your faith or an understanding of doctrine, we begin to treat people differently.

And what we're saying there is, well the basis of our unity and fellowship is no longer the gospel and Jesus Christ, it's this other area of doctrine or a conviction in how you live out your doctrine.

And that's a great concern, because brother, there are no second -class Christians. Jesus does not treat us like that.

He moves towards us, He encourages us, He is patient and long -suffering with us, and I think we need to demonstrate that same gospel -centered love with one another.

Amen. Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York says,

I hope I didn't tune in too late, but I want to ask you about the diversity that develops into tension and possibly even into nastiness and hatred that does involve theology and doctrinal differences that are very serious.

I know that there are certain tertiary differences that would not warrant the separation of fellowship, but there are certain things, especially in this day and age, of ecumenism going wild, where we have churches that tolerate people in membership that deny the fundamentals of the faith, and they are demonstrating a mushy -gushy, covered -with -honey -and -sugar -and -syrup kind of Christianity, where all they're concerned about is loving someone called

Jesus without even really getting into depth on who that Jesus is. That's a very good question. In fact, it reminded me of a barbecue that I was at with a

Roman Catholic friend of mine. This Roman Catholic friend actually was the instigator, if you will, for me starting a decade -long debate series on Long Island, New York, with my friend

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, a reformed Baptist, who's actually gonna be on the show this

Friday, folks, June 29th, but he debated Roman Catholic apologists on Long Island for 10 years at debates that I arranged, and this friend of mine,

Robert Posh, who may be listening, he was a staunch Roman Catholic, he knew that I did not view him as my brother in Christ, although he knew

I viewed him as a friend whom I loved and cared about and still do, but I remember sitting there at the barbecue and I was eavesdropping at a conversation he was having with a woman who said, he was saying this to Bob Posh, the

Catholic, you're so caught up in this spirit of religiosity, why can't we just forget about doctrine and lift up Jesus?

And Bob Posh said, see that guy Chris Arnzen sitting over there? I disagree with almost everything he believes, but at least he believes in something.

You don't believe in anything. But yeah, going to my listeners question, this is a serious thing because we have churches, and I know that you were not advocating this.

In fact, you said it in your very comments that we're not supposed to put doctrine aside at all, but how do you separate those two things?

Because I've even met, in solid churches, I've met members there that deny the Trinity. They just don't want to deal with the person because he's old or something.

Sure. You know, that kind of a thing. But you know, the person is obviously not even a believer, and he's still in the membership roles.

Yeah, I think Paul makes it clear for us in Galatians chapter 1 where he essentially says this, and I'll make it a summary statement, you touch the gospel, the person and work of Jesus Christ, the reality of who

God is, and I would put in there the Trinity as well. You touch the gospel, you touch the character or the attribute of God in that sense, you touch

Jesus Christ, his full humanity, his full deity, you touch his atoning death, you touch justification by faith,

Paul breaks it off immediately without equivocation. And so of course there are things that we must divide over.

Yeah, the Judaizers are such a glaring example of where Paul would not tolerate any kind of fellowship or brotherhood or unity.

Right, and so when someone touches the gospel of Jesus Christ, without question there is need for a division to occur, and I think that's a biblical division to happen.

What I'm talking about, and again to make it clear, I'm not in any way advocating minimizing doctrine.

I'm not, and when I say the word non -salvistic, I'm not saying, oh there's really important doctrine, there's less important doctrine.

What I'm acknowledging though is there are things we can believe and not be saved and be wrong on, but there are things that we must believe to be saved.

And so we're a confessional church, we're New Hampshire Confession of 1833, we have doctrinal teaching positions.

What I'm saying is though that when we have the unity of Jesus Christ and the gospel together, we agree upon that, and then we find another area of doctrine that we do disagree on within church history that has been an area where there have been differences, and we begin to break fellowship with people almost to the extent,

Chris, where you almost begin, you won't say it, but you begin to treat them like they're not even brethren, because they disagree on some of these points.

I struggle to see that, and maybe I can say it this way. If our fellowship is, the requirements for our fellowship are more stringent than Jesus Christ requirements for fellowship, we need to be careful, because if Jesus Christ would embrace someone as a brother in Christ, so what makes someone a brother in Christ?

They repented of their sins and put their faith in Jesus Christ alone, they are saved by grace through faith.

When someone embraces that reality like Christ would embrace that person, and then we say, yes, but for our fellowship, we have to have more stringent barriers put up.

We've got to be careful. And so it's not to minimize other doctrine, but I would agree wholeheartedly if someone is not a believer, like you said, love them as an individual, pray for their salvation, but I would not acknowledge someone who denies the

Trinity or denies Christ or denies faith alone as a brother or sister in the Church. Those are things that we must divide over, as Paul said.

We have an anonymous listener, and I have to enlarge the font on the question.

Let's see here, the anonymous listener says,

I want to let Mr. Barrington know that he is very refreshing to listen to. Thank you.

That's not even really a question, that's just a word of encouragement for you. Thank you very much,

Anonymous. I want you now to have about five minutes of uninterrupted time where you just unburden your heart and you leave our audience with what you most want etched on their hearts and minds before this program is over.

Amen. The reason this unity to maintain is important, one, we're commanded to in Scripture.

In Ephesians chapter 4, Paul says, maintain the unity that we have.

How do we do that? I think Paul, in numerous epistles that focus on 1st Corinthians 13, tells us, the way we maintain unity is not setting doctrine aside, but vigilantly pursuing doctrine while we love.

So to borrow a brother's words here, it's not 50 % doctrine and 50 % love.

It's a hundred percent of doctrine. It's a hundred percent of love. Here's the good news that we have.

In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus not only paid our sin debt on the cross, suffered in our place, died in our place, rose from the dead, accomplishing our justification,

He not only rescued us and saved us, but here's the glorious news. Jesus Christ comes and takes up residence within His people.

He lives in us, and then His fruit, the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, is produced through us.

So when we look at this, this call to be patient and long -suffering and kind with those who disagree or offend us, that's very hard, and I would say that it's impossible.

But the good news of the Gospel is Jesus not only saves us from our sin, but He lives in us and enables us to love as He has loved us.

We must be manifesting this fruit of Christ, the fruit of the Spirit, and we do that by loving others as Christ has loved us.

I'll leave you with an analogy on this, Chris, and I don't remember who I heard this from, but it really impacted me.

And the call to love, it is the greatest call. I mean, we are...it is the sum of the law, the love of God and love of others is the sum of the law.

It can be very discouraging when we see this call and the definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13.

So here's an analogy that might help us. If I told you, Chris, you know,

I know you're a lover of music and I want you to begin to write, produce, and play music like Mozart, and you said,

I would like to do that, I want to do that, and you begin to work really hard at that and strive with all your effort and might and try harder to produce and write and play music like Mozart, what you would find every day is as much as you wanted, as much as you strived for in your own effort, you'd fall on your face.

You couldn't do it, and you might become discouraged. But if I told you, Chris, here's the good news of this is that the spirit of Mozart is going to come and reside inside of you and begin to write and produce and play music through you and produce his fruit of music through you to his own glory, you would find hope and strength that you'd be enabled to produce music like Mozart.

That's exactly what Jesus Christ has done for us in the gospel. He saves us from our sin through his death, burial, and resurrection.

He imputes his righteousness to us through faith, and then he takes up residence within us.

He lives through us by his Spirit, and he loves through us. So the fruit of Christ, the fruit of the

Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, begins to bloom through us as we look to him and his power at work within us.

And it's hope -giving, and the unifying work of the gospel of Jesus Christ to bring such a diversity of people and ethnicity and culture and maturity together as one people with one identity in Jesus Christ is a living witness to a lost and dying world.

So it's important for you and I to maintain this, not only in obedience to the scriptures, but as a testimony to a lost and dying world.

Praise God. We do have time for a couple of more questions. We have

Christian in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks, do you have any comments about the racial hysteria that is currently going on amongst conservative

Reformed churches, where people are being slandered for being guilty of racism when nothing could be farther from the truth, and we have critical race theory entering into the pulpits and things like that that are eclipsing the gospel?

I think it's very relevant to the discussion you're having today. Well, Chris, I think you answered it earlier.

The genuine believer has one identity. That is the identity of Jesus Christ.

When anything, I mean anything else, begins to eclipse that identity, whether it's for the individual or the

Church, when anything begins to eclipse Jesus Christ, we're in danger.

And so, listen, the hope of racial tension in America and what we've seen recently among evangelicals is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and rightly, all of us finding our identity in the gospel of Jesus Christ as our truest identity.

And once we are looking through the lens of the gospel, these things become very clear.

And so I'm concerned when I see this eclipsing the gospel of Jesus Christ and the identity we have in Christ.

So yeah, I think it's an issue, and I think the issue is that we need to get back to what is our true identity, and remembering that the gospel itself is the answer to all of these things.

Amen. And I think that some of our brothers and sisters who are hurling around the accusations of racism have to be extremely careful, because I consider, in fact, all

Christians should consider unrepenting racism as a damnable sin.

Therefore, if you are accusing somebody of being guilty of it, you better be right, because you are bearing false witness against your neighbor, and even more specifically against your brother or sister in Christ.

And well, we actually don't have time for the last question, so perhaps the next time you come on, our listener can send in that question again.

Because I want to make sure that our listeners have all of our contact information. First of all, the

Fellowship Conference New England is being held August 2nd through the 4th at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine.

You can get more details about this conference where our guest Jesse Barrington will be speaking, God willing, at fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com. The website for the Grace Life Church of Dallas, Texas, which is located actually in Plano, Texas, is gracelifedallas .org,

gracelifedallas .org. Do you have any other contact information that you care to share? That's good right there, brother.

My email address is on there, you can get that. There's a phone number that you can call there if you have any questions, and we pass the phone around, so if we might get someone else, they'll be able to help you with anything as it pertains to the

Gospel, so amen. Amen, and don't forget folks, tomorrow we have Owen Stran, who is one of the speakers at the

G3 conference. He is going to be our guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, he's on the faculty of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

On Thursday the 28th of June, we have Stephen J. Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College, the

Bible College founded by the late R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and following him that same day will be

Nate Pickowitz, a mutual friend of both my guest and myself. And on Friday, the aforementioned

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries is going to be on the program. He's going to be addressing Mormonism, and he's also going to be addressing the very thing that our last question involved, the critical race theory and racial tension in the church.

I want to thank everybody who listened today. I want to thank especially those who took the time to write in questions.

I want to thank you, obviously, Pastor Jesse Barrington of Grace Life Church of Dallas, Texas, and I want all of you always to remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you and your questions tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.