In Essentials Unity

In Essentials Unity

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and you're going to turn to two passages similar to what we did last week. You're going to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 10 and you're going to turn to chapter 11 verses 18 and 19 and just hold your place in both of those spots.

Thank you. I did ask for my trusty whiteboard today because I'm going to be giving a sermon slash lesson today. There's going to be a lot of teaching in today's lesson so I wanted to be able to write as I needed.

The Ancient Maxim of Christian Unity

Last week in our new members class we discussed the distinctives that define us as a local church. And during that conversation Brother Andy stood up and he wrote on the board an ancient maxim and that maxim goes like this.

In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity. Sometimes it says in all things love. And this is a principle that I believe is true. We hold to it and we teach it. And what's interesting is that statement is not unique to us.

That statement has been around as I said it is an ancient maxim. It's been around for centuries. Philip Schaff the distinguished 19th century church historian said that that phrase in essentials unity and non-essentials liberty and all things charity.

He said that is the watchword of Christian peacemakers. It's often attributed to Saint Augustine in the 4th century but there seems to be little evidence to support that. It seems more likely that it originated by a man named Rupertus Meldinius.

A German Lutheran theologian who wrote during the bloody thirty years war which happened between 1618 and 1648. And much of that war was fought over religious discrimination and distinctions and arguments.

And so the chant that came out of that was in essentials may we have unity and in non-essentials may we have liberty but in everything let us have charity. Let us have love. Because blood was being shed over those things.

And that phrase has gone on for good reason to be adopted by many churches and denominations. The Moravian Church of North America makes that their motto. The Presbyterian or excuse me the Evangelical Presbyterian Church also holds that as their motto and some of you may not know this so I want to make mention of this as well.

We are not part of a denomination but we are part of a network of churches and the network of churches that we belong to is called the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals or FIRE. And if you go to their website firefellowship .org the very first thing on the front page is the statement in essentials unity and non-essentials liberty and all things charity.

So this phrase is used by many churches and many denominations but this phrase also raises a question and the question is this what are the essentials? If we are going to say we need to have unity in the essentials the very next question that comes is well what are the essentials?

If we got to have unity in those things what are the things that must be believed? And the problem that we find is a juxtaposition between two extremes. The liberal would say nothing is essential you believe whatever you want there's no standards and then on the other side you have the what I would dub as hyper fundamentalism that would say everything is essential.

From how you tie your shoes to how you tie your tie and everything becomes essential and so you end up with two ditches as we often talk about on either side the ditch of liberalism which says nothing is essential and you end up with pastors who don't even believe in the virgin birth or the other extreme where every single thing is an essential and if you don't hold the line to everything then you're not a believer and there's your two problems and both are problems.

You have essentially the juxtaposition between legalism and licentiousness and neither one of them are gospel so as a bible believing Christian church it's necessary that we be able to distinguish between what is essential and what is not.

And so that's what I wanted to preach on today and I do believe that Paul gives us a good place to start in his letter to the church at Corinth I'm going to invite you to stand we're going to read verse 10 of chapter 1 then we're going to immediately jump over to chapter 11 and read verses 18 and 19.

First Corinthians 1 10 I appeal to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

Now over to chapter 11 verse 18 for in the first place when you come together as a church I hear that there are divisions among you and I believe it in part for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

Let's pray. Father thank you for your word and for your truth keep me from error as I preach I plead with you Lord every week and Lord may your people be edified and those who are not yet your people be drawn to Christ Lord may we see the essentials and agree on them in Christ's name.

Amen. I have often found these two passages in first Corinthians to be quite interesting in that they almost seem to say two opposite things they're not a contradiction and I will show that they're not a contradiction but sometimes the Bible does press us into a place of tension where we have to hold a tension between ideas because both are true and yet both are at the same time dealing with two different issues.

There's a great place in Proverbs I believe it's in chapter 26 where it says answer not a fool according to his folly or you will be like him and in the very next verse says answer a fool according to his folly or he'd be wise in his own eyes it seems one says don't answer a fool the other says answer a fool.

And if we took both as saying something that was absolute it would be a contradiction but the writer of Proverbs is basically saying sometimes you have to make an answer sometimes you have to make a defense and sometimes you just gotta not cast your poles before swine.

Sometimes you just gotta let it go and so there are times where there seems to be tension but there's not a tension when we step back and look at it from the perspective of the whole and when we look at 1st Corinthians chapter 1 Paul is dealing with a church that is divided over its teachers.

Some say I follow Apollos some say I follow Cephas. Some say oh the super spiritual ones say well I follow Jesus you know. And so we have this division in the church over things that are ungodly and Paul says I pray that there be no division among you but that you be all of one mind in Christ and he's calling the church to unity.

And I do want to tell you if you don't get anything out of today's message except this please understand today's message is a call for unity. We should be unified on the essentials. We should be unified on those things which are not optional and so we should have unity in the church and we can unify with other churches.

In that sense we can say we're unified with all churches that preach the essentials even if we may differ on the secondary things. So in that we do believe in Paul's call to unity. But the second verse buried much later in Paul's letter to the church at Corinth is this very interesting statement where Paul is talking about of all things the Lord's supper and he's talking about how in the first century they didn't do it the way we do it brother Mike's talked about this several times.

They didn't really have four deacons who carried the supper around they had a meal and at some point in the meal they would take the bread and they would break it and they would say this is the body of Christ.

They would take the cup and they would drink in this is the blood of Christ and they would have that as part of a larger meal. But what was going on in Corinth at the time was that there were people who were taking and bringing food for the meal and they were unwilling to share it with others and they were holding their food for themselves and they were being greedy and they were being hurtful towards those who didn't have.

And it became a problem in the church. If you can imagine a potluck where everybody guards their pot it would be a little awkward like this is my turkey sandwich whatever you know now when I get my plate it's my plate but the pot is for everybody right.

And so they had this problem where there was division over this thing that seems so inconsequential but it was causing strife within the church. And so Paul says he says listen I know there's division among you.

And he goes on to say that they're not acting in a godly way that they need to stop that he goes on to challenge them. But he says something in the midst of it that we should not miss. He says there's always going to be factions among you.

That's why the ESV used the word factions to show who is genuine what Paul's saying there is. There are going to be times where division shows truth from error. And this is one of my biggest problems with the modern evangelical church is that it calls for unity at all costs.

It says we can unify in error. And guess what. The Bible never calls us to unify in error. I can't unify with the Pope. He's a false teacher he's a false prophet. He's a dangerous man. He's not my pastor.

He's not my Pope. He's nothing to me except for a man who needs to repent. I can't unify with that. I can't unify with a church that's ordaining homosexuals in the pulpit because they have gone a bridge too far and they've taken a dangerous road where they're calling good evil and evil good.

And I can't do that. And so the Bible does tell me that there are times where division is necessary because division shows who is on the side of truth. Well you think you're right about everything. No I don't.

But I do think I'm right about some things and I'm willing to stand for the things that I believe are true. And we all ought to. Even if it means division. What did Jesus say. Did I come to bring peace.

No I came to bring a sword and my sword will divide even households where father will be divided from son and mother against daughter and father-in-law against daughter and mother-in-law and son-in-law.

You know these there will be divisions even in a home and haven't we all experienced that at one level or another. Or we have cousins and nephews and uncles and maybe even people who live in our own house that were divided from on the on in regard to the gospel.

And that's difficult. So as I said earlier we are called to unity. We're not called to unify an error though. We have to know what the truth is and not every issue is worth dividing over. So we're going to we're going to ask today what are the essentials and what are the non essentials.

And I put something in the worship folder. It's on the back. If you haven't noticed there is. There's not always something on the back. But I did print on the back of the bulletin this week and I printed a series of concentric circles.

Now I realize that looks like a bullseye. Not necessarily intentionally. But it did does. So those of you who are carrying. No no just by the way in case y 'all don't know. That's like a lot of people here just to discourage any any foolishness.

No all. Right. So number one is the center circle which I'm going to just write primary. The second circle of course would be secondary. The third circle. There is no word for third dairy. So we'll call it tertiary.

That's the right way to say it. You'll also notice there's a word on your folder called adiaphora. Adiaphora is the fancy theological way of saying tertiary. It just means those things which are indifferent or they are able to be held with differing opinions.

And so this is not something again that that is is unique to me. I mean these are things that scholars and theologians have had to wrestle with for a long time. And I'm grateful for the men that I serve with the elders.

I say this almost every week. And this week I sat down with both of them. We talked on the phone. I said okay I want to make sure that we all agree on these things which we should. What are the things that are primary.

What are the things that are secondary. And what are the things that are indifferent or tertiary. So here we go. You don't have to try to write it all down. I'm not going to try to write it on down. What's my rule.

If you want it all just send me an email and I'll send you the my notes. It's all in a PDF. Just email me and I'll see that way. You don't have to sit there and try to scribble because we're going to going to go through each of these and it's quite a bit.

But if you do want to try to write some of them you can. Here are the things that we would say fit with squarely within the the center circle. And some of these you may say I don't. I don't. I don't think you should have to say that trust me as soon as you think you don't have to say something.

That's the thing you should have said the most. So we're going to start at the very beginning of the things that are essential. Number one. God exists. Amen. The Bible tells us those who come near to God must believe that he is and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.

Right. So what's the first thing we have to do as believers is trust that God actually exists. You know there's a pastor in Canada who is a professing atheist. It's a woman her name's Greta something but she is a which the problem there but she's a woman preacher and there's something like the United Church of Canada or something.

And she came out as an atheist and guess what. She still feels the pulpit she still stands up. What are you going to talk about if there's no God. I have no idea what she talks about but let me tell you some this the most foundational thing we must believe that God exists.

The Bible says it is the fool who has said in his heart that there is no God. And so the most foundational thing that brings all of us together is that we're not the fool. We're not the atheist who is saying there is no God.

And such is foolishness. Amen. And so that's the first thing. But there is a second thing that comes right after it and it's so quick to come after that. I think the two go together is that not only does God exist but God has spoken.

You see we are not deists. The deist believes that God exists but that he is an aloof and far-off God who created the world to spin under its own power and to continue under its own energy. And he stepped away to allow the world to function on its own.

And he is neither intimately connected with or really all that concerned about what happens in the world. And that is not the God of the Bible that is not the God that we have because the God that we know exists is the God who spoke.

Not only did he speak the world into existence but he spoke his word to his men through the ages which we now have in what is called the Bible. And so beloved you can't tell me that the Bible is not essential.

Because if you don't have the Bible what do you got. You got a million people's opinions on what God is like like the woman in Kmart who told me well my goddess wouldn't send anyone to hell. Well you're right.

Because your goddess doesn't exist. You made her up in your own mind. You created a God of your own making you are in Europe. You've broken the commandment which says make not a graven image. So we not only believe that God exists but we believe that God has spoken.

And he has spoken to us not in whispers in the back of our brain but through his men which has been written down in his word. If you come to me and say I'm a Christian but I don't believe the Bible we got to have a talk we got to talk about what what do you believe.

Now we can have conversations about translations and we're going to talk about that in a little while. We can talk about things like textual criticism and we can talk about things like that. But when you come to me and you say I just don't believe the Bible.

I had a guy say that on my couch. I've told this story for years. Sitting on my couch looked at me. He was a member of this church and I said well the Bible says this. And he says well I just don't believe the Bible.

I said dude you're in the wrong church. Because we believe the Bible. And that's essential. That is a center circle thing. Not. Not on the outside. That's on the inside. All right. I can't do this for everyone.

All right. I send up being a 16 part series on what the essentials are. Number three not only has God not only does God exist. Not only God has God spoken. But God exists as a Trinity. You say wait a minute.

That's essential. Yes it is because without the Trinity you have a Christ who is not divine. And now you get into a mess of trouble because you've begun down the pathway of Arianism and the modern expression of that which is Jehovah Witnesses Mormonism and all these false teachings about Jesus.

You have to believe the right thing about Jesus to be a Christian. Somebody says I'm a Christian I believe in Jesus. Don't stop there. Tell me what you believe about you. In the people say I don't need theology.

I just need Jesus. Let me tell you something. The very next question out of my mouth is who is Jesus. Well he was a good teacher he was a wise man. But he wasn't God wrong. You were wrong. And you're so wrong that you're lost.

Because you have to believe not only in Christ but in the biblical understanding of who Jesus is. And so I would say the Trinity is necessary now I would say this no one has the capacity in their brain to fully comprehend all that there is to know about the Trinity.

But we can understand certain things. We can understand that God has God is one in essence God is three in persons. And these three persons are co-equal co-eternal and distinct. By the way that's the doctrine of the Trinity in ten seconds.

God is one in essence God is three in persons. These three persons are co-equal co-eternal and distinct. That's the way the Bible describes God. That's the doctrine of the Trinity. It's more than we can comprehend.

But let me tell you something God's eternity is more than you can comprehend too but you know what it is. He's as far this way as he is this way that don't even work because God is not a timeline. But the idea is we know when we say God is eternal we can't really fathom that.

But we know it's true and we know what we're saying. And when we say God's a Trinity we can say we know what we're saying. And let me tell you something the Trinitarian doctrine of God is not something that's a Johnny come lately thing.

This is something that can be traced back to the earliest teachings of the church. I've done it. For those of you who don't know I've written a couple of books and one of the books I wrote is God in three persons a historic view of the doctrine of the Trinity.

And it is available for free on our website in PDF and audiobook. I'll read it to you. That's how important I thought it was. I recorded myself reading the book on the Trinity because I know people don't like to read.

So you can listen to it. You should like to read. But if it but you want to listen to it go listen to it. And I give proof after proof after proof that the doctrine of the Trinity has been the historic belief of the church since its inception.

And anybody who tells you it came along because of Constantine or the Council of Nicaea and that's when it was created is a fool. Now that is when the Nicene Creed was written. But the doctrines that found the Nicene Creed were long before that and held in the teachings of the church and in the scriptures.

So God exists. God has spoken God is a Trinity. These are not optional. Jesus is the Son of God. Again not optional. Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God. You deny that you're not a Christian. In fact that's what the issue with Islam is.

Well outside of like many other things. But the main issue is that the the Quran clearly says cursed is he who says Allah has a son. That is a surah in the Quran which says cursed is he who says Allah has a son.

Their word for Allah's. That's what they when they say God. So they're saying if you say God has a son which we do then you're cursed. Guess what. That's the very foundation of our faith. And I'm willing to die for that.

I'm willing to stand on that because that is not optional. You come to me I don't believe Jesus Son of God. I'm gonna question your faith. And rightfully so now this next one may seem odd but I'm gonna throw it out as an essential Jesus was born of a virgin not optional.

I mentioned earlier about a pastor who taught that many of us know this church hasn't always been reformed. And many many decades ago when I was a wee little lad there was a preacher here and the church hired him without asking him the question do you believe in the virgin birth.

Christmas time came and he said Jesus was not born of a virgin. Thankfully he wasn't here long. Patsy Hoffman used to tell me that story all the time because Patsy was here and she said when she heard y 'all who don't know Patsy she was lovely Saint of God.

She was my Sunday school teacher when I was a boy and she was my friend until she died. And I did her funeral just a few years ago. We were friends for four years and she said when he stood up and said that she said I almost came out of my chair.

Who in the world would say Jesus wasn't born of a virgin. But remember what I said about the liberals. What do they do. Nothing's essential nothing's off-limits. Let me tell you something. Jesus Christ being born of a virgin is how we know he was the sinless Son of God.

It helps us to understand that he did not bear the reproach of Adam but he was the second Adam the last Adam born of the Spirit not born of Adam. So Christ's birth and his virgin conception is absolutely essential.

Don't put that on the secondary list. It ain't it's primary. It's primary. Now Jesus Christ is both God and man. That is primary. We call that in theological terms the hypostatic union. I don't have time today to go into it but I will say this if you've ever taken an academy class with me or if you've ever been through my 12 weeks of the of the doctrines in theology class I teach on this because it is so essential hypostatic union.

The word hypostasis means nature. And we talk about the hypostatic union. It is the union of natures. Christ is both God and man. What we call in Latin vera homo vera Deus fully God fully man. And not optional.

So I believe Jesus was just a man. Well you believe in the wrong Jesus. And I'm not trying to be ugly today. I'm just telling you we got to stand on. When we get to the secondary things. You may be surprised on some of the things I say you're secondary but don't be surprised about the primary things because these ain't optional.

Faith in the finished work of Jesus alone is necessary for salvation. That was a little longer. So let me say it again faith and the finished work of Jesus alone is necessary for salvation. If you trust in anything else other than Christ you are lost even your own good works.

You must trust in Christ alone. We call this in the Latin solus Christus. Salvation is in Christ alone and it is actually part of a five Latin phrases sola fide sola gratia solus Christus sola scriptura and soli Deo Gloria.

Which means we are saved by faith alone through Graham sorry by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone according to Scripture alone and to God alone be the glory. And I would say all those are essential.

If we say we are saved by anything other than Christ we have left the gospel. And the Apostle Paul tells us this there is one gospel not many. And what did he say happens to those who preach another gospel.

Brother Mike let him be accursed Galatians chapter 1. If they preach a gospel contrary to that which I have preached let them be. Even if an angel which by the way is how Joseph Smith says he received his plates for the Mormon book was through the angel Moroni he says even if an angel preaches another gospel you don't listen to him.

You let him be accursed. Yes the gospel is essential. It's what has to unify us. If we don't have a unified gospel we don't have anything to stand on. I'm almost done with the essentials we're getting there.

This one goes with the last one. Good works are the product not the cause of salvation. That's got to be an essential if you start trusting. And I know it sounds just like the last one but I put it as an extra one because as soon as people start trusting in their good works for their salvation they're no longer trusting in Christ.

They're no longer believing the gospel. They have abandoned the gospel. This is the danger of Rome. By the way if you don't think that the Bible in Rome will say well we don't teach good works for salvation.

If you don't believe the byproduct of their system is not believing in what you do then you have not read what they teach. They will say they don't teach it. But the second Vatican and other statements clearly say if you believe you're justified by faith alone you're cursed.

So what else is there. What I do this is why they believe in purgatory. Because they believe if you don't do enough good. If you have not been sufficiently purged from your sins you gotta go somewhere when you die to keep being purged.

That's where the word purgatory comes from. I'm telling you it's a dangerous system. And I do believe they've abandoned the gospel. And I know there's a lot of people who want us to be unified. Hold hands with Rome.

Go stand in front of abortion clinics and hold and I'm all for going to stand at the abortion clinics. I'm all for going to pray. But I'm not holding hands with a dude in a collar because we do not have the same gospel and ain't because of the collar.

It's because of the gospel. Just be clear all right that one was good works are the product and not the cause of salvation. Good works are the product and not the cause of salvation. All right I'm going to.

I'm going to go last on the essentials. You may find something later that I missed. I hope not. I hope that I've hit the essentials. But here's the last one. Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead.

If we deny that we have denied his promise we do not serve a dead Savior. We serve a living Savior. He's in the world today. Right. That's who we serve. And that is who will return as brother Mike often says on that white charger the Word of God in his mouth like a sword and he will come and slay his enemies and put them under his feet.

We know that's going to happen now we're going to get when we get to the tertiary stuff we'll talk about how that's going to happen. But we know it's coming. And if you deny that Christ is coming again that's a problem.

That's a problem now. I want to say this before we go to the secondary doctrines. I do believe that the first few centuries of the church that the early fathers and the early church were focused on these things so much that much of their writings that were coming out were actually to tell us what these things are.

And so if we really want to know what the primary things are we can go to the early creeds and confessions and we could say what unified the church the Apostles Creed. You guys know the Apostles Creed so goes like this.

I believe in God the Father Almighty Creator in heaven and earth. What did I say was the first thing got to believe God exists. I believe in Jesus his only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified died and buried.

He descended to hell and on the third day he rose again from the dead he ascended to heaven is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit the Holy Catholic Universal be careful the Holy Universal Church the communion of saints the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. So we can go to these things and say yes the church has always been unified on these things.

Are there some things in there that we might question what they meant like Christ ascending to hell. Yeah I've got some issues with that and and how they understood that. I think they understood it in the right way.

But I think people kind of twist that and contort that and the word Catholic yeah can we. But when it comes to the essential things they're there and we move a few a few hundred years and we get to the Nicene Creed and they're there and then we get to the Athanasian Creed and they're there and they talk about who God is who the Trinity is what the what Jesus is as both God and man.

And it lays those things out for us. If you've never read the Athanasian Creed that's your homework because it expresses the full deity and humanity and the person of Christ. This is why church history is important.

This is why in a couple months when I get back to doing the Academy our first class back is church history. Because we are woefully deficient in this area as not this church but as Christians in general woefully deficient in church history now got to move to the secondary doctrines.

But I want to say one last thing. Sometimes people ask me what are the minimum things somebody has to believe to be a Christian. I don't like that question because I don't think any of us should be trying to do the bare minimum when it comes to Christ he calls for our all not our less.

But if somebody pressed me what are the minimum things that a Christian must believe to be a Christian. It's the things I've just said. Those are the essential things. If anybody denies those things I would say you have denied the faith.

It's that simple now. Number two getting outside of the primary now now we're going to move out to the secondary. Now I got to define secondary because secondary does not mean unimportant. Secondary defines the church local.

So what do you mean by that all Christians everywhere should be defined by this center circle. But as we move into these secondary things you begin to define things that are defined in the local church.

For instance the local church will have a doctrine of baptism that may not be the same as the next local church. And we're not saying they're not a legitimate church but we are saying we hold a doctrine of baptism in this church that we will follow and everyone who comes will follow this doctrine.

You understand how. Why I say it's not secondary doesn't mean unimportant. Secondary means definitional for the local church. Because let me tell you something it's hard to have people in the same church who hold the different views of baptism and are all trying to enforce those different views.

Some churches do that they're called dual dual conviction or dual covenant churches where they try to hold different views on baptism. And some people baptize their babies and some people don't. Some people pour and some people dip and it's it's in some people say oh I think that's beautiful.

It's often confusing because you have multiple leaders that come from multiple views and they all speak with a forked tongue. I think it's an issue. I think that when it comes to the local church we should be settled on the secondary things.

Some people disagree with that but I'll give you what I think they are first one. I do think baptism. I think we should be settled on how we're going to practice it and who we're going to baptize and I'm not going to baptize your babies.

I don't care what Doug Wilson says. There's a little shot but I like old Doug but I don't agree with that. I love RC Sproul was the greatest preacher of the last century. As far as I'm concerned as far as just man I love to listen to but he was wrong on that.

I believe and I can say that and not say he's not a Christian. I'm not saying he's not a Christian but I can say I believe he was wrong about that and he would say the same about me and we would both have charity towards one another because the third thing is in all things what charity.

Right. We would have charity with one another. Another thing is communion now. I do think that the teaching of Rome is dangerous heresy because Rome makes communion an actual event where Christ's sacrifice is re-performed for your sins and therefore the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ becomes of ill effect.

So I think Rome's teaching is heretical and it's new though it didn't happen. It wasn't even the teaching of the church until the 11th century. So the idea that that was the ancient teaching of the churches is bupkis.

This is not true. Never use that word in the pulpit before. But not true. But do we have differences on the table with other genuine believers. Yes Lutherans who I believe are genuine believers. They hold to the real presence of Christ in the bread in the cup.