In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity

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I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to the 14th chapter of the book of Romans.
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So we're going to be tonight in Romans 14.
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As I said last week, between now and the time the baby comes, I'm not doing, I'm not beginning any serieses on Wednesday night.
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Each week is going to be an individual lesson because when the baby comes, I'll probably be out for a few weeks on Wednesdays and we're still trying to figure out what we're going to do with that.
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But if I am out, I didn't want to stop a series in the middle.
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So I feel like it's okay to just do individual lessons until such time as get back to some sense of normalcy.
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And the title of tonight's lesson is In Essentials Unity.
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In Essentials Unity.
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And that quote, that title is based on a quote which has many different origins.
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If you say, In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity, there are those who would say that that belongs to certain denominations or that belongs to certain teachers.
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I know that at least it goes all the way back to St.
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Augustine.
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We can trace it at least all the way back to the fourth century, all the way back to St.
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Augustine, this particular Christian quote or this particular Christian belief system and that again, the idea is that in those things that are essential to being a Christian, we ought to have unity.
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In those things that are not essential to being a Christian, we ought to have liberty.
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But in everything, whether it is an essential or a non-essential, we should have charity.
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And if you're not familiar, this word charity is actually older use was for the word love.
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So if you wanted to just write that beside it as a parenthetical note, because oftentimes today when we think of charity, we think of like giving to the poor or doing some type of work that's meant to benefit a group of people or we tell people that man gave to charity or that man's doing charity work.
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But the reason why that word has become so associated with giving to the poor or doing work is because that word means love.
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It's an older English term which relates to love.
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And even in scripture, we see in the King James Version where a modern translation might use the word love.
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Sometimes in the King James Version, you see the same verse uses the word charity.
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So tonight we're going to talk about this phrase in essentials, unity and non-essentials, liberty and all things charity.
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And I want to begin with a question.
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And I'm going to be asking for some interaction tonight, not a ton, but I'm going to ask you to interact a little bit.
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I'd like for you to tell me what you think is wrong with this quote.
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What do you think? Because it's very popular.
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In fact, if you go to the FIRE website, we're part of FIRE, Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals.
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If you go to the FIRE website, the very first thing that comes up on the web page is in essentials, unity and non-essentials, liberty and all things charity.
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It is a ubiquitous quote.
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It's everywhere.
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It's in many denominations.
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It's all over the place.
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But what is wrong with it? Lee? That's my man.
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Lee got it on the head.
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Lee nailed it.
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Because the only problem with this is it doesn't say what the essentials are.
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It's true as far as it goes.
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But the question becomes, what are the essentials? Because I've got to tell you, if you go to an independent Baptist church and you ask them what the essentials are, and then you go over to a Methodist church and you ask them what the essentials are, and then you go over to a ultra-liberal PCUSA, Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, they're the liberal.
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The Presbyterian church typically is divided between your liberal and your conservative.
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You have PCA is your conservatives, PCUSA is liberal.
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If you want to know how you know the difference, the liberals use more letters.
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So just think liberals use more letters.
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You go to an ultra-liberal PCA church, you say, what are the essentials? And they would disagree, I imagine, with the Methodists.
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And boy, I know howdy, would they disagree with the independent Baptists.
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And the only reason why I'm using independent Baptists rather than Brother Mike mentioned the southern Baptists, independent Baptists have sort of a reputation, and I say this not to degrade them in any way, but independent Baptists tend to have a reputation for being a little more hardline, or a little more of what we would call, I wouldn't necessarily call them conservative, fundamentalist, right? And you know, so if you think of a hardline, fundamentalist Baptist church, yeah, you just said one.
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We haven't even got to the question yet of that, but he said KJV only.
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You go into an independent, fundamentalist Baptist church, and you pull out your ESV, they might run you off.
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They'd rather see you pull out a moccasin than an NIV.
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So the question is, you've got this wide spectrum.
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So when you start saying an essential is unity and non-essential is liberty, you've got to step back and say, okay, what are the essentials? Because the reason why I told you to go to Romans 14, and we're going to read verses 1-12.
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I'm going to give just a little explanation after we read it, but I want to read verses 1-12 because Romans 14, 1-12 tells us something about the conscience.
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And let's read it together.
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It says, As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.
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One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.
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Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.
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Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
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One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike.
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Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
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The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord.
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The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God.
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While the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord, and gives thanks to God.
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For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.
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For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.
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So then whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
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For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
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Why do you pass judgment on your brother, or you? Why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God, for it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
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So then each of us will give account of himself to God.
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And may God add his blessing to the reading and to the hearing of his word.
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So there is our text for the evening.
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A long set of passages, I won't get a chance to exegete everything, but I want to point out some very important sections of that.
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Because what Romans 14 is essentially talking about, is Romans 14 is talking about the things that are non-essential.
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Paul is not addressing the essentials in Romans 14.
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How do I know that? Well if you go to 1 Corinthians chapter 5, you'll notice that there Paul talks about judgment and how there has to be judgment in the church.
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See if you read just Romans 14, you might think that Paul is saying we should never ever judge anybody about anything.
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But in Romans 14, I'm sorry, in 1 Corinthians 5, he says that he's upset with the church at Corinth because there was a man in the church who has his father's wife.
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Which means there's a man who is having an illicit affair with his stepmother in the church.
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And the Apostle Paul says, you are to put this person out of the church.
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Because what he is doing is not even accepted among the pagans.
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He is living in sin, he's mocking the church, and you haven't done anything about it.
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And he brings a judgment against him, and then he says this.
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He said, I told you not to associate with the sexually immoral.
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But I didn't mean the sexually immoral of this world.
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For if that were the case, you'd have to leave the world.
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You'd have to go out of the world.
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If you wanted to avoid the sexually immoral of the world, you could never evangelize again.
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Because you'd have to go, you know, if I said don't deal with drunkards, you'd never get to go anywhere.
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You know, the Apostle Paul is saying.
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He said, but those in the church who are living in sin, they have to be disciplined.
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They have to be called out.
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They have to be called to repentance and love.
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And we go back to Matthew 18, where Jesus said, if a person is sinning, you go to him privately, and you tell him to repent, and if he refuses to repent, then you take two or three witnesses, and you go to him privately, and you try to get him to repent, right? So all these things do dovetail together, what Jesus said and what Paul says, and even in Romans 14.
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Because when we get to Romans 14, we know that Paul's not talking about sexual immorality.
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He's not talking about, if you think it's alright to live with somebody and not be married, and I think it's not alright, well, then we're just going to agree to disagree.
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Or, if you think it's okay to be living as a homosexual, and I think that's not okay, I think we're just going to agree to disagree.
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No, the Bible speaks very clearly to these things.
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If you think it's wrong to steal, and I don't think it's wrong to steal, then we're just going to agree to disagree, right? You understand where I'm saying? There are some standards that the Bible holds us to.
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But then there are things that are not essential.
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What examples does Paul give us in Romans 14 of things that are not essential? Well, the first thing is food.
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He says, some people believe that they can eat meat, and others believe that they should only eat vegetables.
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Who cares? That's not what he said, that's a Keith Standard version, that's a KSV, that one is definitely not allowed in the Independent Baptist Church.
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But, he says, both of them are going to have to give an account to God.
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There's one who eats meat, and there's one who doesn't.
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Neither is the one who eats meat wrong, and neither is the one who abstains from eating meat right or wrong.
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Because this is an issue of conscience.
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And in that regard, your conscience is what you ought to listen to.
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Because it goes on to say, you shouldn't encourage somebody to violate their conscience.
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If I know you are not a meat eater, and I bring you over to my house for Sunday brisket, then that's probably not good.
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Especially if I know you're not a meat eater, now if I don't know, and I invite you over, then I may have to, you know, drop back and punt, you know, throw something in the oven.
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But, if I know you're not a meat eater, and I bring you over to my house, and I put meat before you with the intent of getting you to violate your conscience, because I know your conscience is bound by that, then I would be wrong, right? That would be something I shouldn't do.
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So Paul puts food.
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This also tells us something else.
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This tells us something about the Old Testament dietary law, because there was a time in Israel's history where the dietary law wasn't up to the conscience.
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You remember? You go back to the Old Testament, there was a time where if you ate shellfish, or you mixed certain foods, like you couldn't have a cheeseburger, because you couldn't mix dairy with beef, and you certainly couldn't have a bacon cheeseburger, because of pork, right? So there was limitations in the Old Covenant.
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The limitations on food were abrogated in the New Covenant.
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You know that, right? Mark tells us this, he says, Jesus made all foods clean.
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You go later into the book of Acts, when Peter's sitting on top of the house, and he's praying, and he sees all the animals come down, and God says, eat, and he says, I'm not going to eat anything unclean, and God says, don't call unclean what I've called clean, right? You got to think that first pork sandwich Peter had, he might have been a little nervous.
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I don't know, maybe he never ate one, but the point is, this question of food became an issue of conscience, because as the gospel went from Israel into all the world, as the gospel spread from one nation to all nations, it was no longer bound under the dietary restrictions of the Old Covenant.
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And I would say this, the Old Covenant law, Hebrews 10.13 tells us the Old Covenant law was made obsolete, because we've been given the New Covenant, we've been given Jesus Christ, we've been given what's called the law of love, the law of the Lord.
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We had this law in Christ, and so there are things that are always and forever sinful.
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Sexual immorality throughout the New Testament is called sinful.
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Lying is called sinful.
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It's not a debate, but other things are.
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Like for instance, he goes on to say in Romans 14, he says, what about the days you celebrate? He says, somebody puts one day above others, and some people celebrate every day the same.
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What do you think he's talking about there? The Sabbath.
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Under the Old Covenant, there was this Sabbath that had to be held, but not only was there one Sabbath, we often think a Sabbath is Saturday, because that was the Old Covenant day that everybody rested, that was the day of the Sabbath.
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But there were other Sabbaths.
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There was a Sabbath of weeks, there was a Sabbath of years, the year of Jubilee.
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There was all kinds of festivals, and yet the New Covenant doesn't observe the festivals.
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Now we can, every year we have a Seder here at Sovereign Grace, and we celebrate that, but we don't do it under the strict code of the Old Covenant.
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We do it with a view to Christ as the picture of the Passover lamb.
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It's not intended to be strictly observed as to fit some rule or law, it's being done in the liberty of conscience, and in remembrance of Him, absolutely.
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So he talks about the days that we worship, he talks about food, he's talking about things that are not essential, and that's the key to Romans 14.
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There are things that are essential.
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There are things that if a person believes, I can say that that person is not a Christian.
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Likewise there are things that if a person doesn't believe, I can say that person is not a Christian.
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Now you might say, well who are you, you, you, judgmental, you, you don't get to do that.
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Well, if somebody came to you and said, I don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but I'm a Christian, would you believe them? I mean seriously, it's just that simple.
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So there are things you would, all of us would say that are essential, right? Years ago, how many of you have heard of C.S.
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Lewis, probably Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, you know the Adarnia, right? See, he did write that, right, I'm not wrong, but C.S.
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Lewis was a Christian thinker and a writer, author, wrote tremendous works.
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C.S.
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Lewis is attributed, and I don't know that it absolutely came from him, I would have to investigate more, but I know it's attributed to him, the phrase, mere Christianity.
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And mere is like, merely, you know, as little as possible, right? How many of you have ever heard the phrase mere Christianity? A couple of you, have you, Ms.
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Charlene, are you familiar with that term? Mere Christianity is a movement that's gaining more traction now.
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That's why I didn't know if maybe you've seen it on Facebook or something, because mere Christianity is coming back in vogue, you know, C.S.
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Lewis has been dead for quite some time.
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But mere Christianity is the idea that we want to limit the essentials as much as possible to the bare bones, so that we can try to include as many people in the church as possible.
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You understand how that would work, right? If that which makes a person a Christian can be limited, limited, limited, limited, limited to maybe only one thing, right, then it expands the scope, right? The opposite of the mere Christianity movement is not a particular movement, but if you're in your mind thinking, the opposite of mere Christianity is legalism, legalism, and I don't really have a better term, maybe you'll think of something, but the reason why I'm calling them legalists is the opposite of mere Christianity are those who make everything essential down to what you wear to church, down to what car you drive, and what kind of leaded gasoline you buy, I mean, you know, maybe I'm being a little exaggerative there, but you understand what I'm saying.
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Mere Christianity is attempting to make nothing essential, but maybe one thing, and honestly the new big thing right now is the Trinity.
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Yes, ma'am? Yes, it is.
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And I think it wasn't to make Christianity small, it was to write an essentials kind of book.
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Oh, I know.
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I'm not blaming him for the movement, and if I came across that way, I apologize.
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What I'm saying is the title of the movement sort of finds its way back to him and to his writing, but what's happening now is there's this push to sort of eliminate the essentials, and they're calling it mere Christianity.
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They're using that term, which like I said originates with him, but they're not really using what I think his book would have been, at least not as far as I know.
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So the mere Christianity movement is trying to limit the essentials, and really the only essential anymore with most mere Christianity people is the Trinity, because if you make the Trinity the only thing that somebody has to believe, then you get to eliminate the differences between Protestants and Catholics, because Protestants and Catholics both believe in Trinity.
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You get to eliminate all the distinctions between the denominations, because in general most denominations affirm the Trinity.
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So it's a way to sort of do an ecumenical push.
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You know what ecumenical means? That means crossing denominational lines.
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Ecumenism is the idea of trying to bring everybody into the same pot.
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And while that sounds wonderful, you give up what the essentials are, and you're usually limited to, like I said, one or two essentials, because as soon as you bring in, let's say justification by faith alone, I would say that's an essential.
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I'm not telling you, I'm telling you that's what I believe.
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Justification by faith alone is an essential.
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I can show you from Scripture why I believe that so, but immediately when I say justification by faith alone is an essential, immediately whole denominations I've divided from.
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So mere Christianity is trying to bring unity by cutting out the essentials.
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The opposite is true for legalism.
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Legalism don't care who they're unified with.
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What, mere Christianity being open? Yeah, this includes everybody.
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This only includes, I mean, I know guys who who tie the circle so tight that they're the only ones in the circle.
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You know, it's like, and you've probably all heard the joke where the guy standing on the bridge fixing to jump off.
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Sounds like a great joke.
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No, no, a guy standing on a bridge fixing to jump off, and a guy comes up to him, and he says, man, you shouldn't jump.
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He says, he says, you know, you need to believe in Jesus, and you don't need to take your life.
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And the guy says, man, I believe in Jesus.
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And he goes, really? He says, you're a Christian? He goes, yeah.
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And he goes, well, I'm a Baptist.
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Another guy says, I'm a Baptist.
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And he goes, well, I'm a Baptist, a Southern Baptist.
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He goes, wow, I'm a Southern Baptist too.
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And he says, well, I'm, I'm Southern Baptist with the 1689 London Baptist Confession.
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Another guy says, well, I'm 1646.
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Die, heretic.
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You know, and he pushes him off the bridge.
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Yeah, so, I don't know if I told the joke very well, but you get, you get the idea.
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As you tie the rope so tight, you tie the circle so tight, that you're standing, you're the only one there, and you're standing on one foot, you know.
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So, there has to be a balance, and there is a key to the balance.
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And, and what, what I wanted to do tonight, and we're getting kind of, time is eluding us as it always does, is what I want to do is, we're gonna go over some doctrines.
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And I want to tell you this, this sheet, I don't even know if Jack and Richard recognize it, but this is, this is the sheet that we gave to Byron when Byron became an elder, back when it was, you've seen it.
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And what I did was, we asked Byron to read this document and tell us which ones he felt like were essential to be a believer, and were not essential to be a believer.
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And like I said, I'm not, I'm not testing you tonight, none of you are going up for to be an elder tonight, but the idea that I wanted to do, because I did this with the young people on Sunday morning, is we take this sheet right here, well I've got it drawn on the board, you got these three concentric circles.
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What I'm going to do is, I'm going to read each one, and each one's got a number, right? And you're going to write where you think, and this, and this, this matters at the end, because you're going to look at it, you're going to see where you are, sort of, you know, whether you're putting a lot in the middle, a lot in the second, and here's what the circles represent.
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The middle circle is the essentials.
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If a person doesn't believe that, then you would say that person's not a Christian, okay? The second circle is church essentials.
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You say, what do you mean by church essentials? Well what I mean by that is, what do you think the church should hold to, even though it doesn't mean a person has to believe this to be a Christian, but a person should believe this if they join a church.
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For instance, I'll give you one example.
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In our particular church, we believe in, we do not believe in baptismal regeneration.
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You know what baptismal regeneration is? That means that baptism causes salvation, right? There are some churches that do believe that.
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Now I would say that's a false teaching, but if a person came here and believed that, we wouldn't, we would say that affects how you understand what we're teaching.
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So church essentials are different than essentials because the church does have to hold its doctrinal positions.
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And the last one are what you would say are non-essentials.
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And if we were, the middle one might confuse you.
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So you might have some bleed-over between this one and this one, but what I'm hoping is that you'll see that in the middle, those things are the things that really, really matter.
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Right? So let's go through these.
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And again, all you do is write the number down that you think where it goes.
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Whether it's in the middle, whether it's in the next circle, or whether it's in the outer circle.
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Number one, the one and only God, who is Yahweh, that's the divine name.
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The one and only God created the universe and all that is in it.
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Do you think that is essential? That if somebody said they didn't believe that, you would say that person's not a Christian.
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Okay, I'm not, and again, we're not, don't cheat off each other.
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What do you think? This is it for you only.
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Number two, God created the world in six literal 24-hour days.
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Now, you might believe that.
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I'm not asking if you believe that.
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What I'm saying is, do you think somebody has to believe that to be saved? That's the key.
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I'm not asking if you believe it.
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I would hope that you believe most of these.
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That's not what I'm asking.
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Do you think a person who denied that could be saved? And I'm not giving you my answers, because that wouldn't be fair.
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This is for you.
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This is for your own sake.
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Number three, God in His act of creation did not use evolution to bring about mankind, but created mankind as a special being in His image.
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Do you think that God creating us in His image, being a special creation of God, is necessary to believe? It's an essential.
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Number four, God is the only eternal being without beginning or ending.
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Now, if you say, to express that a little bit more clearly, God is the only being who is eternal.
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No other being is.
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And when I say God, I'm including God as Trinity.
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God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
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So I don't want that to be confusing.
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So when I say God, I'm talking about God as a Trinity.
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Number four, five rather, Adam and Eve were literal persons who by their sinful action brought death to all people as a punishment.
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Again, the question is not whether you believe that.
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Do you think if a person didn't believe it, they could be saved? Number six, we got to move a little quicker.
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Number six, all people are sinners by nature and by choice.
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If somebody said, I don't believe that, can they be saved? Number seven, faith in Jesus Christ is the only way for sinners to be reconciled to God and go to heaven.
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Is that essential? Is that just essential for our church? Or is that not essential at all? Number eight, sinners who are not reconciled to God through Jesus Christ will spend eternity in hell.
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The key to this one is belief in hell.
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Can somebody not believe in hell and still be a Christian? Is belief in hell essential? Essential just to the church or non-essential? Number nine, salvation is a free gift of God received by grace through faith and is not dependent upon works.
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Again, that's sola fide.
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Is that essential, non-essential, or just essential to our church? Number ten, the Bible in its original manuscripts is the only infallible rule of faith and practice for the Christian.
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Is that essential? Essential just in our church or is that non-essential? Number eleven, the Bible, which is the sixty-six books of the Protestant canon, is the complete Word of God and is not missing any books, nor does it include any books that should not be there.
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Do you think that somebody has to believe the Bible is the Word of God? Did somebody answer out loud? I thought I heard somebody say, yep! That's fine, but does somebody have to believe the Bible's Word of God? Is that essential for Christianity, for our church, or not essential at all? Alright, number twelve, God is Trinity, one in essence, three in persons.
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Is that essential, non-essential, or just essential in our church? Number thirteen, Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God and the second person of the Trinity.
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That would really go with number twelve, pretty much whatever you put on twelve you probably put on thirteen.
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Number fourteen, Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary.
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That one should ring, you know, kind of heavy in our ears because there's a lot of people who don't believe that, even ministers who haven't believed that Jesus was born of a virgin.
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Is that essential? Number fifteen, Jesus in the Incarnation, that's God becoming man in the flesh, was both fully divine and fully human.
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That second F should not be capitalized, that was my bad.
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Number sixteen, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and is not simply God's impersonal active force.
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That kind of goes with twelve and thirteen.
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If you believe in, wherever you're at on twelve is probably where you're going to be on thirteen and the sixteen.
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Number seventeen, the Lord has set forth two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper, which the Christians should participate in.
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Is that essential? Essential to the church or not essential at all? And by essential I don't mean that you think it's important.
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I'm saying you think a person who believes opposite of that would be unsaved.
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Number eighteen, baptism is to be administered by immersion in water and is for believers only.
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Again, do you think that's an essential teaching? Essential to our church or not essential at all? Number nineteen, the church must take care to uphold the Word of God and not engage in moral compromise or affirm any sin.
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That one might sound kind of long and let me explain it like this, do you believe that a person who is living in sin should be affirmed as a Christian? And by living in sin I'm not talking about people, we all sin every day and we all battle sin.
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A person who is living in habitual unrepentant sin, should they be affirmed to the church? Is that essential, not essential, or essential only to the church? Number twenty, we're almost done.
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Jesus rose from the grave bodily on the third day.
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I know you believe it's true, but what if somebody didn't? Could they still be a Christian? Okay, number twenty-one, the devil.
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The devil is an angel who fell from heaven and is the most evil being in the universe.
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Not asking you if you believe it's true.
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Asking if you believe if somebody denied it, could they be a Christian? Number twenty-two, God expects believers to give the first 10% of their income to his work as a symbol of worship and trust.
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That's the tithe.
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Is that essential to salvation? Is that just essential to being a member of the church or is that not essential at all? Number twenty-three, Jesus Christ will return from heaven at the end of the age to judge the world in righteousness.
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Is that essential? Essential just to the church or not essential at all? Running out of room? Okay.
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No, I'm not looking for your answers.
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I just saw you draw a new circle.
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Okay, number twenty-four, the Holy Spirit empowers all believers with individual gifts to be used in service to God and to his kingdom.
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That essential to believe? Not essential to believe or you think it's essential for the church? Number twenty-five, the sign gifts, sign gifts are usually identified as miraculous healings, tongues, were given to the early church and was not intended to be the normative practice for Christians of all times.
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Do you think that's essential to believe? Church essential or non-essential? If that one's kind of confusing, basically what I'm saying is if you believe that the miracle gifts that were given to the early church should continue, then that's the opposite of that, because that would say that they shouldn't continue.
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But either way, the question is what you believe about the gifts.
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Is that essential, non-essential? And here's how it works up.
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I know people who believe that if you don't speak in tongues, you're not saved.
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You see how that becomes an essential then? Whichever side you fall on, there are people who believe that if you're not baptized as a believer, you can't be saved.
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Right? So that whichever side you fall on, you're saying whether or not that's an essential or not an essential.
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And that's why I put that third category, because there are some things that are essential for the church, but not for salvation.
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Alright, almost done.
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Number twenty-six, God works all things together to achieve his glorious purpose.
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Is that essential to believe? Number twenty-seven, the church is made up of God's elect whom he predestined to life before the foundation of the world in Jesus Christ.
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I threw that one in for fun.
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I only say that because while I certainly would believe it, I know that not everyone believes that.
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But do they have to to be saved? Number twenty-eight, this is a big one.
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A person who is genuinely saved may go through periods of failure, but will not ultimately fall away.
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That's the doctrine of eternal security.
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Is that essential, non-essential, or only essential to the church? Number twenty-nine, those who at one point profess faith and later fall away and deny the faith, that's called apostasy or apostatizing, show their faith was not genuine to begin with.
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Is that essential or not essential? Every one of these, by the way, I could go through and say this denomination believes this, this denomination believes that, and I could show you how each one of these is believed by certain denominations and denied by others.
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So every time we say something's essential, we are saying that this denomination has missed it on an essential.
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Finally, number thirty, a genuine Christian is a member of the universal church, of Jesus Christ by faith, and should be an active member in a local church.
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So again, that last one kind of falls to the question, do you believe that going to church and being active in the church is essential? Church essential? Not essential? Alright, now again, I told you I'm not going to ask for your answers, and y'all can sit around and talk afterwards if you want to know what everybody else said, but let me tell you why I had you do this.
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I do have a reason for this, because what your sheet looks like tells you which side you sort of fall towards, okay? Now you might say, well Keith, you picked things that most were essential.
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I don't know, did I? That's why I'm asking you to make that judgment, because again, what's essential and what's not, the question is not what's important, the question is not what should be believed.
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I'm asking the question, what must be believed? I'll give you one right off the bat that may surprise some folks, may even anger some folks, I hope it wouldn't, but if you go to number two, I believe that's true, but I don't think it's essential.
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I think if someone says, I believe that God created the earth in six periods of time, but I don't know that it was exactly 24 hours, I could say, okay, I disagree with you, but I would not deny him as a Christian.
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However, the next one, if he says, I came about by evolution and not a special creation of God, I would say that is essential.
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Now how you understand the six days, we can debate that, and I would tell you I think it's six literal days, and I would debate that to the point of saying, this is what I believe the Bible teaches, and I think it's true.
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I think it is.
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I'm not saying it's, yeah, I think a church should take a stand on that.
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I think the church should be able to say, we believe this, and the pastor preach it, but I don't think that it would make me say, like for instance, who knows who Hugh Ross is? Okay, Hugh Ross is what's known as an old age creationist.
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He does believe mankind was created as a special image-bearer of God, but he believes that the earth is older than seven to ten thousand years, which is what the young earth view is.
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I don't deny that Hugh could be a Christian.
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Now I don't know if he is, because I don't know him, but just that alone wouldn't make me say he's out of the kingdom.
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You see what I'm saying? However, there are people in Hugh's camp who believe that we are simply sanctified bonobos, that we're basically special apes that God took and made, that we were all evolving along, and God took some of those apes and turned them into image-bearers.
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That's not what the Bible teaches.
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The Bible teaches God created man as an image-bearer.
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He didn't take something that was already there and add his image.
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God created him to bear his image.
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See what I'm saying? Absolutely, for the purpose of having dominion over it.
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So again, my point in all of this is one, I think it's fun.
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I love talking doctrine.
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I love talking truth, and I love for people to hash these things out and ask questions that maybe you haven't asked before, but also I like you to consider the fact that when it comes to the essentials, when it comes to the real essentials about who Jesus is and what he's done and the gospel, there should be unity.
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So let me just, for the last part, as we draw to a close and I'll pray, let me say this.
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When it came to the Trinity, I would imagine we probably put that as a unity thing, an essential thing.
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You might not have.
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I'm not calling you out if you didn't, but I'm saying that's one of those things that I would say I would have held to.
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But what if you met a person who believed in Jesus Christ, who believed in the truth of the gospel, but had never heard the word Trinity before? Would you say they're not a Christian? Maybe it hasn't that they've denied a truth, maybe just they don't understand that truth yet.
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I think it does become an issue of denial more than an issue of belief, because if somebody says, I don't know what the Trinity is, teach me and I teach it to them and they believe it.
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But if I teach it to them and they say, well I don't believe Jesus is divine, then I would say, brother how did he save you from your sins? How could anyone but the Lord save you? Exactly.
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So again, nobody, I'm not calling anybody a mere Christian, I'm not calling anybody a legalist, I'm saying this is something, these doctrinal questions are important.
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When we gave it to Byron, we simply said, which ones do you think are essential for the church? Because he was becoming an elder of the church.
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So which do you think that we should hold to? When a church, when a person comes to join the church, if they deny these things, which ones do you think they should affirm if they're members of the church? It was an important conversation.
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It was a long conversation.
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It was at Richard's house.
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We sat there in his living room and had this conversation a long time, because the doctrinal truth of the church, I will say this, for me, in this list, very few things are non-essential, but almost probably a half of it falls under church, more so than an absolute essential.
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But again, not telling you what you should or shouldn't have written, and if you want to talk about it sometime, I'd love to, but this is just for me, it's a fun activity.
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I did this with the youth ten years ago, when James Harper was our youth director.
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I took this list to the youth when we were on a camping trip, and I set it down before them, and we spent, can you imagine, three hours, three hours with like 15 kids, and they, I had to make them stop, because the difference between what they did and what we're doing tonight is they got to argue which ones they thought should or shouldn't be, and it was a blessing to hear them making arguments from Scripture, but the Bible says this.
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Yes, for me, I would maybe put more than four, but not many more.
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Yeah, so wonder what those four are? I ain't going to tell you.
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Let's pray.
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Father, thank you for tonight.
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I pray that this has been a blessing to those who are here, and I pray that this was encouraging and enjoyable, and Lord, that they will, as the years progress in our faith, Lord, as you give us years and days and months and years, Lord, that we would just desire to grow in you, as that is what we are called to do.
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In Jesus name, amen.