Schismatic Charismatics - [1 Corinthians 1:10-17]

Christmas time is coming and I remember the days when I was a kid, a selfish kid and I couldn't wait to open some of those packages and then

I would open the packages and they wouldn't be what I wanted and then I would have to kind of fake that I was thankful.

Thank you grandma for those nice athletic tube socks that go up to my knees. Thanks a lot.

I can just remember looking over and my dad gave me that look like you better try to fake it even if you're not thankful.

For many weeks we've been anticipating, many months we've been anticipating the joy and the pleasure of diving into this book, 1

Corinthians. And at least for me, I've been very excited because I haven't been disappointed yet.

We've just begun to go through the book, just getting into the introduction and still I think this book is now my new all time favorite book.

That happens to me all the time. It used to be the Sermon on the Mount but now it's 1 Corinthians. If you open your

Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, we are just marching verse by verse through this book. We pick a book and we go through it because we want

God to speak to us. It's one thing to speak to God in prayer, it's another thing to sing praises to God and it's quite another then to hear

Him speak to us. We are men and women who have been captivated by the loveliness and goodness of Christ Jesus.

And when that happens, when God captures you, you respond with many things but one for sure thing is this.

You respond with a desire that says, I love your word. You respond with an attitude that says,

I used to think this was a bunch of hogwash but now I realize this is divinely inspired.

It's God breathe and God speak to me through your word.

If you study old books, maybe you study Chaucer or someone else, maybe Shakespeare. There is something to be said for learning about literature of another generation.

Maybe you learn about the culture a little bit back then. But wouldn't you agree that when it comes to studying the Bible, it has its application for Corinth when it was written.

When Paul wrote to Corinth, he said this is for you. And we say yes, it is a historical document.

But isn't it great that the Bible is living and active? It is transcultural, transchronological.

It transcends time and space and then it is able to speak to us today. What other literature does that?

No other literature because this is not just a book written by the apostles and prophets. This is a book written and inspired by God as he uses those men to write the word.

Well, 1 Corinthians. We are going to talk today about unity. As Paul appealed to the church of Corinth to not be divided any longer,

I think this book still will speak to us today to make sure that we stay unified. Paul's problem as he looked at Corinth, Paul's analysis of the problem rather, is you are fractured, you are rife with divisions and factiousness, and he then clears it up.

But for today, my prayer is that the Lord will keep these warnings for Corinth in our minds so that we don't become like Corinth.

It doesn't take very long to think back to 10 years ago when we probably were

Corinth. And the divisions and the factiousness and the quarrels and the controversies that were in this church.

Now that we are farther down the line in our maturity, for those that were here those days,

I would venture to say this, you probably don't want to go back to those days, do you? I don't.

I am glad for those days in the sense of maturity and learning, but we want to make sure we listen to what

God says in 1 Corinthians 1, specifically verses 10 through 17.

Paul's going to be talking about unity. If you're a young person and you're having a little tick mark today for every key word, the key word is unity.

I will say unity over and over and over. Now as I looked on the Internet, there's all kinds of words for unity and slogans for unity.

United we stand, divided we fall. All for one and one for all.

Workers of the world unite. People united to save humanity.

That was a 1980s slogan. United States of America, United Nations, Union of South Africa, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, United Auto Workers.

There's a whole litany of words, a veritable sea of words that are in the English language that talk about unity.

I just picked up a few. Alliance, association, belonging, brotherhood, coalition, commonwealth, community, confederation, cooperation, federation, fraternity, organization, partnership, sisterhood, sorority.

The list goes on and on and on. Corinth needed every one of those because Corinth was a church and it was like Satan walked in and took a stick of dynamite and placed it right up by the pulpit and then lit that spiritual dynamite and along with the dynamite went all the people into different factions and groups.

And if Jesus is one, if God is one, if his bride is one, we need to make sure we continue to strive for that oneness.

Well, let's just take a look at an overview again of the introduction before we get down to verse 10. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 1,

Paul called as an apostle of Jesus Christ, the saving Messiah of Israel by the will of God, and Sophonies, our brother.

That's who wrote it. And he wrote it to, verse 2, the church of God, it's God's church, which is at this local place called

Corinth, right in a place we would call today Greece. To those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling with all who in every place call in the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. Paul is writing the book of 1

Corinthians for what reasons? As we take a little step back before we dive into verses 10 and following, why did

Paul write 1 Corinthians? It's good to know that because then it will help you understand what is going on in our particular passage.

You have to know why a letter was written to kind of pick through the details of a certain passage.

And so Paul says, I've got this letter to write to you. I've been with you for 18 months, and you've written me a letter, and I've written you back, but the message didn't get through on your end, so let me write this letter called 1

Corinthians. There were problems. There were divisions in the church. Paul addressed that. Chloe's people said there's not only divisions in the church, but there are people in the church who are immoral.

There are people in the church who sue each other. And Paul was dealing with those questions.

There are people in the church who don't think the body that we've been given should be sanctified.

And then they had some other questions. In the second half of the book, chapters 7 through 16, Paul answers a variety of questions.

So we're here at the very beginning. Paul deals with the first issue, and that is of divisions.

And I love 1 Corinthians because it handles things like this. Tell me another book in the

Bible that discusses divisions. Or you can find them, but they don't talk about it like Paul does.

He's comprehensive. He's interesting. He's personal. He's direct.

And he's simple. Anybody can get this. If you can understand English, you can understand this passage today.

You can understand 1 Corinthians. Paul wants Christ Jesus' glory in this church.

And Christ Jesus' glory is not going to be manifested very well in a fissured, fractured, factious church.

That was alliteration, wasn't it? Southern Baptist in me. It's one thing to have the town meeting full of people who are up in arms against each other.

It's one thing for a political organization to say, well, we've got some different factions in the group.

It's one thing and acceptable if the Moose Lodge has people, you know, some power plays going on in the

Moose Lodge. Has anybody here ever been to a Moose Lodge? It's one thing if the Oprah Book Club has a couple of strong -willed women driving that thing, and they're in conflict.

Actually, our society knows that conflict sells. The Firing Line, the

McLaughlin Group, I don't know if that's still around or not, but I used to watch it, makes good TV.

But splits and quarrels and contentions should never be in a local church.

So for me today, I'm not trying to say to you, BBC, you quit fighting. Maybe the steroid in me wants to do that,

I don't know. But this is, we have unity. Years ago,

I prayed for unity. And we have unity at the leadership team. We have unity in our church body.

Now, there may be a few who like to walk out of step here and there, but overall, we have unity. And so we're going to look at Paul's message to Corinth, and then we're going to say to ourselves, and I want the

Spirit of God to say through the Word, let's keep what we have. And isn't there room for improvement in this church, for more unification?

Absolutely. So that's what we're after, the unity in the local church. If you've been around long enough in evangelicalism, you've seen church splits, fights, dissensions, and the bloodletting that goes on in the local church of all places.

Don't people know they're fighting with and contending with something that's not even theirs?

The Bride of Christ? I guess there's only one positive thing when there are church splits, is you can't split dead wood.

So there must be some life in the church. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?

James says, Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and you have not, so you commit murder.

And you're envious and can't obtain, so you fight and quarrel. Doesn't that wreck our testimony?

Are we less credible when people say, yeah, Bethlehem Bible Church, that's that church that goes around and hands out

Bibles on Saturdays, and on Sundays it is WWF or whatever the latest, what's the new kind of martial art?

MMA. I knew Carl would know. Whatever the latest is.

And you think, yeah, these Awana circles are really for the cage match fighting that goes on later after the service.

You say, well, we're too sophisticated for cage fighting. But in reality, what goes on behind the scenes with our words and with our mouths?

We want to be unifiers. We want to be someone who doesn't divide the church and speak down upon Christ's bride.

And Paul began to think about this because it's tied into verse 9. Verse 9 goes with verse 10.

In verse 9 we saw last week, God is faithful. He's always faithful. Literally in the Greek, faithful is

God, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our

Lord. This faithful God takes sinners, He declares them righteous,

He makes them born again, and He creates a fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and we are in fellowship with Him.

And then Paul says, and now when I think about you, Corinth, there's a problem with your fellowship. And Paul deals with church division in the rest of chapter 1, all of chapter 2, all of chapter 3, and all of chapter 4.

Do you think it was a big deal? If it was just me, I'd say, stop being, why are we fighting? Quit fighting.

And he deals with it thoroughly and personally. So today we want to talk about unity, a positive exhortation to maintain unity.

And then the second I say that, I'm wrong. It's not an exhortation at all.

How does Paul talk to them? Let's take a look at this before we get into the outline. Now I exhort you.

Now I exhort you. You see it in verse 10? Brethren, you say, well that is an exhortation. But friends, the

Greek word is parakaleo. We call the Holy Spirit the paraclete.

And paraclete means this, one that comes alongside of. If I teach my kids how to play pool, billiards, and they've got the cue stick, and they kind of, you know, you ever seen a four -year -old kid try to play pool?

And you just think, oh, the tip of that cue stick to the velvet kind of whatever top is, that green top of the billiard table.

And you can just see ahead of time when that four -year -old gets a stick, they're just going to jab it right in there, marked for life with that big tear.

So what do you do? Well, you go to your friend's house with a nice table. No, that's not what you do. What do you do?

You come alongside. So the kid's here, and you come alongside and wrap your arm around, and you put your hand here and there over their hands, and you show them how to actually hit the stick, right?

You come alongside. And so Paul says, he could say sternly, like he did in the church of Galatia, who has bewitched you?

And he sternly rebukes them. He could command, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ.

But he doesn't do either of those. He comes alongside, and he says, I'm going to encourage you.

I want to appeal to you. I want to come alongside and say, as a fellow co -worker of Christ, here comes the affectionate appeal.

I'm not going to preach commands to you today. I'm going to preach to you appeals.

I want to appeal to you to keep what we have that is unity, because that is what Paul does.

The text says exhort, but really it is an entreaty. He's not really imploring more than he is encouraging.

He says, I want to come alongside of you with affection. This is the father sitting the family down, saying,

I'm getting ahead of myself, but that's okay. We're fighting our own family. Now let's have a family conference.

This isn't me over here. I'm not against you. I'm not trying to make myself look better because I'm not doing it, and you are.

This is all for one right here. We're all as a family. And so Paul says, I'm going to talk to you like I would be a father with affectionate appeal.

One man said this word draws its force from a relationship of friendship between the writer and addressee.

So Paul says, I'm going to come alongside. He says it over and over and over. It's found a hundred times in the

New Testament. I'm going to come alongside and talk to you. I'm going to appeal. So let me give you a handful of appeals today to keep our unity here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

Did I just say Bethlehem? Why did I say that? I hate it when people say that. We're going to Bethlehem.

Excuse me. To keep the unity here at Bethlehem Bible Church, I'm going to give you a handful or several appeals from the text.

So Paul was trying to correct their behavior. I'm trying to keep our unity here.

Appeal number one, I appeal to you, Bethlehem Bible Church, that we all agree, we all must agree, unity is essential because we are family.

That is to say, you ought to say to yourself, we are a family here, so unity is important.

By definition, a family should have unity, at least a functioning family, a good family. So we need to agree.

So I'm appealing to you, since this is a family, let's act like it. And you just see in one small little word that kind of idea.

Not just the word exhort, although that's got family overtones, but look what does he say.

Now, I exhort you fools. I exhort you sinners.

I exhort you back biters. I exhort you problem people.

What does he say? I exhort you brethren. This is amazing.

By the way, this could be men and women, of course. This is gender inclusive. Probably the only time you'll hear me say anything nice about gender inclusivity.

But this is gender inclusive. And did you know, this is interesting, especially you students here, you seminary students.

Did you know this word brothers, it's where we get Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.

Did you know in all the New Testament books that Paul wrote, 29 % of all the times he said brethren are in this book.

So Paul said brethren 133 times in all his writings.

And did you know 39 are here? You wouldn't think that Paul would talk in brother language.

You would think he'd talk kind of schoolmaster. Get the rod out. Get the stick of discipline out.

Get that shepherd's crook out because there's going to be a beating going on here because you guys need it.

That's not how Paul does it. This is an appeal, familial, two kids fighting, two brother and sister fighting.

And what does the parent do? Paul, the parent as it were of Corinth, he was there to preach the gospel for those 18 months and Jesus births the church at Corinth through Paul's preaching.

He talks with family language. And you go, that's not a big deal.

Here it is a big deal. Why? Because did you know in the Old Testament brothers, the word brothers was only used of fellow

Jews. Jews could call each other brothers. Exodus 2, Deuteronomy 3,

Nehemiah 5. You're a brother. But would you include a Gentile into this family name of brother?

No. Furthermore, did you know when it comes to the Roman culture, nobody called somebody else brother unless they were in their formal family.

And lots of times, I think Pastor Dave is classic for this. He calls people what? Brother Mike.

Brother Steve. Sometimes I get the email, Bro Mike. With affectionate, appealing, persuasion.

He says, why are you fighting? We're family. It's like the classic thing when the

Christian husband and the Christian wife take sides, they're hurting themselves because they're both on the same team.

There's no brownie points to win. There's no score to be settled because if you win your argument, you lose anyway.

You're together. Galatians 4, verses 4 -6.

Make it clear. Listen to these great words. But when the fullness of the time came,

God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Because you're sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father.

Paul says to Corinth, your brothers act like it. Your sisters act like it. And I say for us, for preventative maintenance purposes.

We want to stay unified. We want to minimize the quarrels and the fighting and the backbiting and the strife and any factiousness that's in our hearts.

Because why? We're a family. And quite literally for some of us here, myself included, you're the only family

I have. At least on this side of the Mississippi. Aren't we family?

Don't you meet Christians and go, we're family. We're closer than brothers. I have some people here that I'm closer to than I am actually my own sister.

Although my sister is blood, she's not born again. Aren't you closer to people that are born again more than you are sometimes your own family?

The answer is yes. So you wouldn't want... I've been to people's houses before and their kids are fighting and you're like,

I just can't wait to get out of this place. This is just chaos. Nobody likes it. What if the church is like that?

So we want to run from that. Paul said, we're family. Bickering, infighting, politics.

No. Number two, here's the second appeal. So you can see Paul, he's got the apostolic authority, but he just comes along and says,

I'm going to appeal to you, brethren. And then the second appeal is this.

Not that just we're family, so we should think unity is important, but let me give you a second appeal for the unity of Bethlehem Bible Church.

We're all followers of Christ Jesus, our Lord. He's the King. He's the Master. We're all under Christ Jesus.

In other words, this isn't my church, this isn't the elders' church, this isn't your church. Look at what the text says.

Now I exhort you. He could say, because I'm an apostle like he did earlier, but now he's going to exhort them by the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not just saying you ought to think unity is important because I'm an apostle.

He could say that. But you ought to think unity is important because here comes the name of Jesus Christ.

When you say name, it's not... I mean, I was talking to Eric Raymond on the phone for the

No Compromise radio interview on Friday. And he said, before I became a Christian, I thought Jesus was his first name.

Christ was his last name. You know, Jesus Christ, Mr. Christ. Why does he put these words here?

Why is by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ? By His gentleness, by His meekness, by His wisdom, by His sovereignty, by His power, by His unity, by His solidarity, by who

He is, by that name of the Lord Jesus Christ. What's in a name?

All the attributes of God are in His name. When we baptize people in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Spirit, one singular name, three persons. It's not the names of, it's one singular name.

What are we saying? We're baptizing people based on sovereign grace and what they've done, sovereign power in their lives.

Based on who God is, we now baptize. And here he says, based on who Jesus is,

I'm appealing to you, get in line. Stay in line. He's the Lord. You say,

I'm a Christian. Paul says, act like it. True or false? If you're a

Christian, there should be some degree of vitality to your Christian life. That is to say, something vital, something alive.

If you're a Christian, God has made you alive, you will be different and there should be some vitality. I'll never forget it.

Yesterday I was listening to S. Lewis Johnson preach and he said, some people who come to the local church and involved in the local church have only this much vitality.

They have enough vitality to get up on Sunday morning on time, get dressed, have breakfast and sit for an hour and a half in church and that's their entire week's worth of vital contribution to the local church.

S. Lewis Johnson said that. I'd never say such a thing. If you have

Jesus as your Lord, He has regenerated you, you are different and by the name, the saving power, the way

God makes people, new creations in Christ Jesus. Before you were a Christian, you might want to go to the town hall and fight with select people and scream out,

Robert's Rules of Order. I couldn't believe it when I first got here, by the way, 13 years ago and I'll exaggerate just for the sake of emphasis.

It wasn't this bad. But I was told by people here, not necessarily leadership, but people in the church, that I'm not doing things according to Robert's Rules of Order and I thought,

I think I missed a seminary class or something. I know 1 Timothy, I know 2 Timothy, I know

Titus, I know Acts, I know the Bible and I don't know Robert's Rules of Order. I guess I'm upside down.

Point of order. Point of order. Every time I go to a meeting where somebody likes to shout out point of order, there's one person that loves to do that more than anybody else.

You guys don't know what I'm talking about, do you? Some don't. So then I'm just going to move on. Point of order. Not doing things properly.

That's how we acted before Jesus was our Lord. When we were our Lords, small l, that's how we acted.

We wanted to score points to show people, I know those rules. You can't pull one over on me.

I'm in charge now. Paul said, Jesus is Lord. He is the

Lord. If Jesus is the Lord of Bethlehem Bible Church, third class conditional,

He is. How do we act? Paul says, well you act like a family and you say, Jesus is

Lord. I can't just use lip service anymore and I just can't say, well, He's my Savior but not

Lord because He's neither. God made Him Lord and Savior and you have to embrace

Him as both or you're not a Christian. Since God has saved us, since the

Lord Jesus has saved us, we have new friends, new goals, new eternal destiny, new priorities, and God has put in our hearts, in our own consciences, through the power of the

Spirit, that now you are predisposed to obey God. True? I think the answer is you're going to have to say, yes.

When God redeems a sinner, He now puts in them a desire driven by the

Spirit of God to want to obey. Certainly to at least have the ability to obey.

Leon Morris said, you call Jesus Lord, Savior but not Lord, then you need to think of this statement.

Morris said, it does not mean to carry on with the old way with perhaps a few of our worst habits dusted off.

We act differently. God is Lord by more than name. The word

Lord is not simply a title like Mister, or Doctor, or President. Since God is

Lord, we need to have new allegiance to Jesus, which means allegiance to the

Bride. Let's put it this way. If Jesus is your Lord, you will love the local church.

Don't want to try to destroy it. Obligations to the

Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ saved me. I'm obliged now to do it. But that's not all.

Take a look at appeal number three. First appeal that I want to give to you. You're family, so make sure you keep unity front and center.

You're all slaves of Christ Jesus, the Lord, so let's keep His unity front and center. And number three, the third appeal, you ought to remember that the best way to keep unity is to have the same doctrine.

Doctrine brings unity. The first thing that goes to your mind, we've got this slogan in our minds, this mantra in our life.

Doctrine what? Say it out loud. Divides. Friends, in one hand, that's a lie from Satan.

On the other hand, it's true. Let's close in prayer. No, I'm not trying to be post -modern.

Doctrine divides truth from error. It does divide.

But here Paul doesn't do what the world would do. You guys have too much doctrine, you're just going to have too many different splits in the church, too many factions.

Paul says, you have the same doctrine, the elders believe the same doctrine, you speak the same thing about doctrine, you will be unified because we all agree in the essentials.

Take a look at the passage, verse 10. I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree that there be no divisions among you, that you may be made complete in the same mind and same judgment.

Doctrinal unity is essential. What is Paul saying? You all need to think the same way about those politicians around Corinth.

You all need to vote for the same ones. You all need to have the same favorite team when it comes to the second to the

Olympic Games, the Isthmian Games, where they would go right there to Corinth. And when there's a match, you need to all root for that same guy.

You need to all eat the same kind of food and when it comes to Corinthian falafel or whatever they eat,

I don't know what it is, some kind of Athens hummus, I don't know, but you all have to eat the same thing.

Paul's not saying that. Like people like to be around themselves.

You see that in wars and in institutions. You see all these people, all the whites like to be together, all the blacks like to be together, all the browns like to be together, all this country likes to be together, and we just are naturally just drawn to people who are like ourselves.

So now I'll use that against you. Forget what you look like. Forget what you like to eat.

Forget about your political backgrounds. Forget about your education. You have all been redeemed. If you're a Christian, you have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and we're all family.

We all need to think the same way about that. Can you imagine the chaos this church would be? I mean, you take a look at us.

I don't think our church represents West Boylston. What do I mean by that?

Well, I just think God has drawn people who love Christ Jesus and love His Word, and we look differently.

We act differently. How can you get a group of people, how many do we have here today? I don't know, 300 people, to all think about the same things.

He's not saying every single thought you need to do and think in your mind has to be exactly the same.

How can we do it? We can't. When God redeems out of every tribe and tongue and nation, what unites us?

What unites the Chinese and the Koreans and the Americans and the Hindus, excuse me, not the

Hindus, the Indians, thinking the same thing about the

Scriptures and what are in the Scriptures. You want to disagree about sports?

I hope Boston College loses every game. It's fun to root against somebody, isn't it?

You want to root against teams? I hope the Lakers crush the Celtics this year.

Wow! I root for the Celtics, but not when they're going to beat the

Lakers. Social issues?

Maybe we disagree on some of those. Parts of the country we like? Maybe we disagree on some of those.

Proper use of the English language? Maybe we disagree on some of those. You say, that didn't even make sense.

Maybe we disagree on some of that. The word agree has a connotation that there was a political group that had no factions in it.

So here now, we have a spiritual group and there are no factions. It's not because we're different. We are different, so what unites us?

We speak the same thing and we speak the same thing about Scripture. It is inspired, it is inerrant, it is infallible, it is sufficient, it is authoritative, it is eternal, and we speak the same things, especially in leadership, but then on down we go, we speak the same things about the essentials of the

Christian faith. That's what Paul's after. That's the only thing he could be saying. There must be doctrinal unity.

One man said, this is quite different from agreeing on everything. If we are exhorted to speak the same thing, so as to practice and promote unity, then we must speak about those truths which all

Christians share. What do we all share that we could all say we all say the same things about?

It has to be doctrine. It has to be doctrinal unity. How can

Pardeep and I speak the same thing? Today I was talking to Erickson and I said during, you know, greet one another and I went up to Erickson and I said, you know, greet one another with a holy kiss and I was getting ready to kiss his wife and then the next thing you know,

Erickson kisses me on the cheek. I'm thinking, I've got some Filipino guy kissing me on the cheek. There's got to be some kind of, something's going on here.

You know the wonderful thing about it is, there's nothing wrong with it. Everything's right about it.

Because while I don't know how to deal with this culture or what goes on back at home when he was visiting his sick grandma and all these other things,

I know everything I need to know about Erickson and his wife because they love the same Lord. They love the same doctrines.

They have the same view of the scripture and that keeps us all, what? United. That's exactly what he's talking about here.

Same mind, same judgment. And so what does Paul say to Corinth before I talk about our own application?

You see in verse 10 there towards the end that you be made complete? Be made complete means this.

Something was broken and you put it back together again. The church of Corinth was taught the scriptures.

Think of a bone. And the bone is healthy. Just make it very practical and very clear and very biblical because it has to do with the broken bone in the original language.

You've got a femur right here. And the femur is nice and perfect and good and it's the way it should be.

And Paul has preached the word to the body there and there's a nice healthy femur. Paul leaves and he's been gone and he gets a report back.

You know Chloe's household is saying that there's a bunch of divisions and there's a fracture in the femur. And Paul says now

I want you to be made what? Complete. That is the word. I want you to take the bone that's been broken and put it back together.

It's like a garment. There's a garment that's ripped. I want you to sew that ripped garment up.

That's the idea. Putting back together something that was broken, fractured or fissured.

It could also be used of a dislocated joint. So you have an arm.

The arm seems to work fine. Paul preached the word and God grew the church and now there's an arm and all of a sudden

Paul's out of town and that arm is dislocated. I've told you a hundred times how I used to pick up my brother

Pat by the arms and his arm would go out of dislocation. He would be screaming. You know normally when you do something wrong to your younger brother when you're ten years old you can kind of don't tell mom everything's fine.

Just shrug it off. I'll pay you $500 when I'm older. You bribe them but when the kid's walking like this to mom and dad hey what's going on son?

Oh nothing. The arm's just... and you've got to hold the elbow the right way and put it back in a joint.

And Paul said you've got to think the same way and you're dislocated now. Put that arm back in the socket.

Instant relief. Not for Paul. Not for them but the Lord Jesus Christ.

Repair. Restore. Think the same things. Has to be.

You've got to be unified in the doctrine that I've taught you for 18 months Paul says to the Church of Corinth.

On a side note I think it's very important to say when elders have an elder meeting and whether Lewis was here before he moved to Washington D .C.

and there was five or whether there are four now and we want to make a decision it has to be three to one before we move on.

It's four to nothing or five to nothing. Why? Because we know the mind of the Lord isn't fractured or fissured or dislocated so we need to try to find that.

We have to be unified in our thinking regarding this or we don't move on. That's the way the

Church should think about it as well. After all the Church is a body. After all

Psalm 133 don't you love the verse? How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.

Paul says I want to get this problem solved. I appeal to you as a father. Once and for all kind of language let's get it taken care of.

It's like when he prayed in Romans chapter 15. Wouldn't this be a good prayer for Corinth? Now may the

God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the idea doctrinal unity.

Let me give you some things that you should believe with the elders here to make sure you're on the same page as we are.

That's the language of Paul. You're on the same page. I think the background of that language was if you've got some music you want to make sure you're singing on page 7 when the person up here is singing on page 7.

You want to be on the same page. If I'm singing on page 8 and this person is singing on page 7 there's going to be some kind of discordant resonance.

I don't know what it's going to be. Those are just some words I thought had something to do with audible stuff. Is that okay, Charlie? Yeah, okay.

So how can you get on the same page? Let me just give you what the reformers would call the five solas.

We could pick anything. We could talk about the deity of Christ. We could talk about the Trinity.

We could talk about all kinds of things. Let me just give you five that you should say I affirm. And if you don't affirm them you should say well, but I trust the leadership and I need to study to make sure

I affirm these kinds of things. These are just five general things that the churches throughout the centuries have affirmed and the

Elder Board here affirms them. There's no crack. There's no well, you know

Pastor Steve is just kind of off on this one so we have to kind of go around him a little bit. He doesn't quite get this one down.

No, we all affirm these. There's no crack on the Elder Board and you ought to say I'm under the teaching here of the church.

I should affirm these five as well. These are the five solas S -O -L -A -S the five onlys the five alones of the

Reformation in response to the message today.

You should say yeah, do I affirm these or not? Let's just talk about these and I want you to agree with these. I appealed to you as a brother that you should agree with these even though you can't say the five solas you don't know

Latin but you say yes, that's true. And if you think this way it will help our unity at this church.

Sola number one Sola Scriptura If you think this way I don't have time to go through our doctrinal statement.

You should affirm that. You say yeah, but there's a couple things I disagree on. Friends, if we agree on the 997 then

I think we're going to have a good mind speaking the same thing than the two. And so we don't necessarily agree on every minor issue so these aren't minor these are major.

You better agree on the major ones. So let's talk about these. Number one Sola Scriptura Scripture alone is the standard for our lives.

Scripture you must believe is the final and ultimate authority for your

Christian life and the church. Do you believe that? Remember with Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms in 1521

Unless I am overcome with testimonies from Scripture or with evident reasons for I believe neither the

Pope nor the councils since they have often erred and contradicted one another. I am overcome by the

Scripture text which I have adduced and my conscience is bound by God's word. That's Sola Scriptura.

It's not the Bible plus L. N. G. White's writings. It's not the Bible plus Tradition the Bible plus Trent the Bible plus the

Magisterium the Bible plus your own mysticism. It's the Bible alone and if we think that way we will be remaining we will keep rather our unity.

Psalm 138 Thou hast magnified Thy word according to or above all

Thy name. The Belgic Confession says we believe that the

Holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God. If you believe that we will be unified.

Neither the Confession goes on to say may we consider any writings of men however holy these men may have been of equal value of those

Divine Scriptures nor ought we to consider custom or the great multitude or antiquity or successions of times and persons and councils and decrees as of equal value with the truth of God.

We believe that all Scripture is God breathed and is profitable for teaching reproof for correction training and righteousness.

Number two I think if you would agree with me on this we will guarantee our unity at this church.

I'm just picking five things out A. Interesting not in any order B. Historical C.

Biblical but also important for our church. Number two

Sola Fide Sola Fide means faith alone. By the way when we were singing the song

Confident I just looked at that word confident what does confident mean? Con means with Fid means faithful with faith

I have confidence this is going to happen I have with faith I'm singing it. So not just Sola Scriptura but number two

Sola Fide justification by faith alone. God declares us righteous like a judge in a court and he puts the gavel down not guilty.

Just broke that water Dan fix that for me would ya? Dan's just been baptized. We don't agree on what kind of water to serve around here but we agree on Sola Fide by faith alone.

That's good. Oh he's sprinkling people. Domino Sanctus Spiritu as he walks out of the church.

We do not agree Dan. I draw the line there. When the church all says the

Bible's the only authority we all have to submit to that. It's not we it's the Bible has the authority and Mike had that funny dream last night because he was hanging out with Erickson and Pradeep and then he has this dream and we are bound

God told me what a tragic way to cause division in the church because if I'm in a church where the pastor says

God told me something I say to myself chapter and verse pal or I'm not doing it I don't buy it and then some other poor immature person is sitting over there and they're going

I do buy it. They say I buy it. I say I don't buy it. There's a problem in the church.

We're divided. We're not thinking the same things. But when we say there's one valid interpretation of every text and it's our responsibility and privilege to find out that meaning by the

Spirit's illuminating power and that's the highest authority. It's not Mike because he's been here for 13 years and he's the preacher.

It is the word of God and we are all under it. That will make a church come together, won't it? I'll never forget as long as I live

I just looked over at Charlie. We're going to Elder Rule here at this church and Charlie said I know all the things to paraphrase

Charlie I know about how absolute power corrupts absolutely and all these other things bad illustrations of elders but the

Bible teaches Elder Rule and with a tear in his eyes he said I vote for Elder Rule. We think the same way when we're under the

Bible that way. That's what a mature person does. Secondly faith alone before I was rudely interrupted by this water faith rests on and receives

Christ in His righteousness according to the

Westminster Confession. Galatians 3 Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Many of the works of the law are under a curse for it is written cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident for the righteous man shall live by faith.

Here's what this principle says that we ought to rally around. Say I don't remember sola fide I don't remember justification by faith alone then remember this there is no merit there is no work there are no works there are no things that someone can do to combine those things with faith in order that God might receive us and declare us righteous.

Faith and good works do not yield justification. It's Christ's work alone

His life and death confirmed by His resurrection will declare us righteous and we receive

Christ's righteousness even though it's different than ours. It's foreign it's alien it's not tainted by sin like we are and God says

I declare you righteous based on your denial of your your own thoughts of your own goodness of your own of your own works and merits and you're not trusting yourself and you place your faith and trust wholly in the work of Christ Jesus.

It's not justification by imputed righteousness or justification by faith and sacrament of baptism no faith alone.

Number three the third sola of this church and the Reformation grace alone sola gratia so the

Bible alone faith alone grace alone salvation by grace alone. Roman Catholic Church teaches quote

Mass is a sacrifice which is truly propitiatory God grants us grace and the gift of penance remits our faults and even our enormous sins that is not sola script that is not sola gratia that is self merit taught by Rome and we believe in the opposite that's what they taught so the reformer said no we believe in grace alone it's not grace plus merit because grace plus anything turns that grace into works

Romans chapter 11 verse 6 listen to what one confession says in 1689

Christ by his obedience and death did fully discharge the debt of all those who are justified and did by the sacrifice of himself and the blood of his cross undergo in their stead the penalty due unto them makes a proper real and full satisfaction to God's justice in their behalf

Ephesians 1 says it better in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us we believe in monergistic regeneration that is to say

God alone works we don't go arm in arm with God we don't you know say

God it's you and I who've saved me no we don't cooperate we receive time is fleeting number 4 solus

Christus or solo Christo depending on if you want to say Christ alone or through Christ alone we are saved by Christ's work alone this is what

BBC ought to agree with we say we're under scripture it's faith alone through grace alone now number 4 it's what

Christ alone Christ alone stepped in and bore God's wrath no one else no other mediator no other person no one except Jesus Heidelberg Catechism says do such then believe in Jesus the only

Savior who seek their salvation and happiness and saints in themselves or anywhere else they do not if Jesus alone saves us then why do we put any of our affection our

Latria our do loss or anything else towards anyone it is Jesus alone the mediator

He delivered us from the domain of darkness Titus Colossians one mediator also between God and men no other mediators you don't say well

I this church is not unified by saying you know there is someone who always can turn

Jesus around and who could ever say no to their we don't say that if we did we would be split up and lastly solely

Deo Gloria to God alone be the glory all glory for God since He alone saves us since He alone grants faith since He alone has

His Son die on the cross He alone should receive the praise and glory and exaltation who wants to exalt humans after those four who wants to praise humans after that what is the chief of man man's chief end is to glorify

God and enjoy Him forever whether you eat or drink or whatever you do do all to the glory of God for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things to Him be the glory forever to Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever doctrine doesn't divide a church doctrine is meant to unify a church we affirm these things we bow to these things because they're in Scripture doctrine unifies and Paul says church you've got different backgrounds you look differently you act differently you smell differently you do things differently you're from different backgrounds but you are one in Christ so he says

I appeal to you to think the same things well how about you?

say well I don't really want to study doctrine we had Bob Andrzejczyk and Josh go out the other day and ask people at the

Barlow Girl concert what is doctrine? if I were to take that microphone now with the tape recording going getting ready to play a little snippet of you on no compromise radio and I put the microphone to you and said what is doctrine?

would you give the right answer or would you be my next laugh track? what is doctrine?

doctrine is a statement of truth about God and it should be your highest pleasure to learn about God say well

I'm kind of bored with the Bible bored with the Bible? bored with the

Bible? you say well I might be bored with the Red Sox I might be bored with gourmet food

I might be bored with such and such but God by definition by nature by essence is anything but boring it's like that cosmonaut who said there's no

God and I can prove it I said yeah I bet you can prove it just get out of your space capsule for five minutes without your space suit one man said there'll be a

God there how can

God be boring? Isaiah knew God well and he never got to the point where he said

I've been studying for a long time and I'm the top dog around here in these parts of Judea and when I see

God it's just there's kind of God me and God I saw a

God over here I kind of take Him out every time I need Him when Isaiah saw God what did he do? he's bored changed the channel bloop church is boring as John MacArthur says if you find church boring and the word is preached that is a commentary on your own heart not the service and frankly now

I move from appeal to exhortation we don't put the worship service together for your liking anyway right?

how can God be glorified? let's read the word let's pray the word let's preach the word let's pick songs that glorify the

God of the word and if you say well I don't like those things then I think you should say God make me like Him God I don't like Him help my unlike and we ought to agree that the local church gets together to praise

Jesus Christ and to hear His word and if you have that idea in your mind you will never be bored oh tired oh distracted oh suffering oh other things but you will never be bored and if you had your

Bible open today I have the privilege of preaching to a congregation that I don't think was bored for the last 55 minutes because you want the word of God and that is what unifies

Bethlehem Bible Church the God of the word Jesus Christ and His word unifies us all let's pray

Lord it is good to be here to sing your praises and I praise you for Bethlehem Bible Church I praise you that we are so far away from Corinth yet Lord I think of Ephesus and how they did the right thing and then you had your son rebuke

Ephesus for being lukewarm so would you through the red word today in Psalm 143 revive us would you take these words and help us to think the same thing would you help us to speak the same way would you give the hearts of the people here an increased desire for doctrine for scripture for sound teaching and Father I do thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me a church that wants your word that proclaims the truth that you've assembled people from a different background we don't look like Wes Boylston for that Father rejoice

I thank you and I pray for our church that you'd help us to agree and that there would be no divisions among us because this is your church and your son has earned this church and we want to honor him in Jesus name