Undivided: Overview

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, good morning, everybody.

[SPEAKER_00]: How you doing?

[SPEAKER_00]: Good, are we excited for some baptisms today?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I am.

[SPEAKER_00]: really pumped.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've got 18 people getting baptized today, 14 in this service for in the earlier service and it has been amazing to hear their stories this week of how God has been working in their lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: It reminds me of the focus that we've had for the church for the last couple of years which is to be on mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to be on mission as a church but a lot of churches get distracted from that mission by all sorts of things that threaten the mission of the church

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to enter a series today that we have done before, but it's been six years.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the last time we did this was during the pandemic, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: The beginning of the pandemic.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we need a refresher and a reminder on some of the principles and actually after the first service today, people came up to me afterward and said, you know, I wasn't here when you went through this the last time, but this is exactly what I'm dealing with right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I need this.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I was in high school,

[SPEAKER_00]: I was part of a church that experienced a really ugly church split.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it probably wouldn't have mattered to me as much, if I hadn't just gotten serious about my faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a very painful thing to go through.

[SPEAKER_00]: It started with a group of people that got together for what they called a Bible study, but it quickly became just an opportunity for them to complain about other Christians and to steadily and on a certain set of beliefs that they thought everybody needed to agree with or else they shouldn't even be a part of the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was a group that ended up shutting down some ministries or pressuring them to change to align with their views.

[SPEAKER_00]: It became sort of an us versus them kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: They kept it quiet for a while, slowly recruiting people to join them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was kind of clear that their mission was not to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Their mission was to convert the converted to their way of thinking and to stomp out all other view points.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a very difficult thing for us to go through.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember the pain of seeing people who had been friends of ours for a long time get caught up in this and distracted by it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there were some people who, I don't think were actually followers of Jesus, but they saw an opportunity to sort of build a following.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so they took advantage of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were some pretty bad examples in there, not everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Certainly some people got caught up in it, but the loudest voices were some of the most damaging.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the people around them and their friends, who maybe kind of agreed with them, but maybe weren't on board with some of their tactics they did nothing to correct them or guide them back into a proper way to handle their disagreements with other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so this turned into a sharp dispute as people took sides within the church and you started to see the battle lines drawn.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not so much really about the beliefs of it all, or the theology of it all, on the most important theological issues, everybody for the most part agreed, though there were some exceptions there.

[SPEAKER_00]: But really what it boiled down to is how they were handling their disagreements that led to so much division.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of it was on some of the non-essential things that created so much debate and argument within the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: And eventually it led to a church split.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a really troubling thing to watch and to go through and after seeing all of that, I was thinking to myself, man, is it possible for people to disagree with each other in a church and that still love each other?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it possible for this to not eventually ultimately always turn into this group, takes this position, this group takes that position, and now we just separate and form our own churches?

[SPEAKER_00]: It does feel like that's been a lot of what's happened throughout church history, doesn't it?

[SPEAKER_00]: You see a lot of that?

[SPEAKER_00]: might be some of you here today who have some church baggage because you've experienced some of that hurt and a church where people did not treat each other with love the way the Bible says they're supposed to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it possible for us to disagree about things and still love each other and be united and live in harmony?

[SPEAKER_00]: When is it important to divide over our beliefs?

[SPEAKER_00]: When is it right for us to separate over those things?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it sometimes the right thing to do?

[SPEAKER_00]: And these questions led me to hundreds of hours of study and research and looking at church division and studying the stories and talking with people about it and researching more importantly,

[SPEAKER_00]: what the Bible teaches us about how to handle our belief disagreements.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that I realized as I studied church splits in church disagreements is that most of them did not happen because of a major theological dispute.

[SPEAKER_00]: Most of them happened because of some secondary belief issue or how the disagreements were handled.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to ask you a question and I really do want some interaction here.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a bit of a risky question, but be bold.

[SPEAKER_00]: What are some of the things hypothetically that some Christians might argue about?

[SPEAKER_00]: Not you, but some Christians might argue about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead, throw them out there, just yell them out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, okay, not all at once, so what do we got here?

[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't understand that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Mary, being holy, thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for the clarification on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: OK, yeah, in Maryology as a theology, what else?

[SPEAKER_00]: Music, that's a great one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Music is a perpetual disagreement in the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a big disagreement a long time ago when they first started to bring organs into the churches.

[SPEAKER_00]: And man, that was one of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of the church met a long time church members in New England threatened to go throw the organ back into the ocean from once it came, because they did not want organs and those awful hymns in their church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: What makes a good sermon?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thursdays I thought you said, it's serving.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it makes a good sermon.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm really feeling the pressure.

[SPEAKER_00]: What else?

[SPEAKER_00]: Captain.

[SPEAKER_00]: Age of the universe.

[SPEAKER_00]: Age of the universe?

[SPEAKER_00]: I heard alcohol back there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, both good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Captain.

[SPEAKER_00]: Baptism.

[SPEAKER_00]: Appropriate.

[SPEAKER_00]: Coffee in the sanctuary.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know why you'd bring that up.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll just leave it at that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have no shortage of things that we could disagree on and argue about.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, if I were to pull you on a few different issues, I'll bet I would have a lot of different views in this church today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Spiritual gifts and times, birth control, the Sabbath, modesty, piercings, tattoos,

[SPEAKER_00]: about this one, whether faith comes before regeneration or after regeneration.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you don't even know what I'm talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: But those are the types of things and many, many more that we can divide over or at least disagree about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, are all of those things that I just mentioned and you mentioned, are they unimportant?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, they're not unimportant.

[SPEAKER_00]: But are they on different levels of importance?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, probably.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are they the most important things?

[SPEAKER_00]: Probably not, and many times in the church, we can agree that something is important, but we may disagree on how important.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when is a disagreement worth dividing over?

[SPEAKER_00]: When is it worth leaving a church over?

[SPEAKER_00]: Have some of you experienced church disagreements in the past and has it turned you off to church entirely?

[SPEAKER_00]: I understand that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been there.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are good questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: And part of growing in our faith is learning how God wants us to handle the disagreements we may have with other people who are also in the family of faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: But church is a family.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the family of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, you can put up with a lot if somebody's in your family.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just look at the person next to you for brief moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can put up a lot if someone's in your family.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the person that brought you here today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, even though that's true, there is a line, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there is a line.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can put up with a lot if they're in your family, but there is a line where we have to start putting in place boundaries because we've crossed a line.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we need to know, where's that line?

[SPEAKER_00]: Where's that line in the family of faith where we say, okay, this cross is the line because maybe we cross it too quickly in some instances and we divide when we don't need to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe other times we allow things that we shouldn't be allowing in the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to know the difference because it helps make for a healthy church.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to acknowledge what some of you may be thinking, which is, why would we even have disagreements among Christians?

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't we all follow the same book?

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't we all follow the same Holy Spirit?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, why would we think differently about things at all?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to just give you two quick reasons for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is that we're human.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're all human.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have sin, we have pride, we have ambition, we have anger, sometimes we take a position, we don't actually know enough, sometimes we let our emotions or our personal baggage influence, our judgment, sometimes we're just looking at things from a different set of experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: And different history, or different sets of facts, and we can't have all the information.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that leads to different opinions and views on things, different interpretations of things in the Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the second one is more important.

[SPEAKER_00]: because the second reason why Christians disagree is because we are at war.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a spiritual war going on behind the scenes, a battle that we are in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the Bible talks about this and warns us to be aware of the work that is being done behind the scenes to try to divide followers of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give you an example in Ephesians chapter six.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul is talking here to the Christians and Ephesus and he says, put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil.

[SPEAKER_00]: For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's happening behind the scenes, you don't see it, but there are beings that God has created that have turned against him that are working against him and working against God's people.

[SPEAKER_00]: The unseen world against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places, and then he tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 4.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times, some will turn away from the true faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: They will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so some of the things that will be taught in churches, Paul says, and to people in churches will actually be teaching that doesn't come from somebody that's just a little messed up or has their wrong set of facts, but they'll actually come from demons.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you might be wondering, well, what kind of teaching will come from demons?

[SPEAKER_00]: This must be some pretty bad stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we'll know when we see it, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well Paul gives the examples in the next verse.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, they will say it is wrong to be married.

[SPEAKER_00]: and eat certain foods.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that sounds pretty, pretty basic, pretty Monday.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I would spot that and say, well, that must be teaching that comes from demons.

[SPEAKER_00]: The point is, the spiritual enemies of God's people will use whatever they can to cause division and turn people away from the most important things.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the enemy wants to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: CS Lewis wrote about this in his book called The Screw Tape Letters.

[SPEAKER_00]: How many of you have read The Screw Tape Letters?

[SPEAKER_00]: It is a fantastic book.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really encourage you to read it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Many of you are going to know exactly what I'm about to share, but this is an excerpt where a senior demon is coaching a junior demon.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's all fiction, of course, but it's based on the Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: A senior demon is coaching a junior demon on how to keep a person that they call the patient from having a relationship with God.

[SPEAKER_00]: and the junior demon is concerned because this man, the patient, has been visiting a couple of churches lately.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so the junior demon writes to the senior demon, it says, I'm concerned about this, and the senior demon says this.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is one good point, which both these churches have in common.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are both party churches.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Louis doesn't mean party like, whoop party?

[SPEAKER_00]: He means party like a faction, like a division.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says they're both party churches.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think I warned you before that if your patient can't be kept out of the church, he ought at least to be violently attached to some party within it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't mean on really doctrinal issues about those, the more lukewarm he is, the better.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it isn't the doctrines on which we chiefly depend for producing malice.

[SPEAKER_00]: The real fun is poking hatred between those who say mass and those who say holy communion when neither party could possibly state the difference between more important things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all the purely indifferent things, candles and clothes and whatnot are an admirable ground for our activities.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have quite removed from men's minds what that pestulent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now this is a fictional account.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think he absolutely nails what Paul teaches us in the letters in the new testament.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes there are people even in churches.

[SPEAKER_00]: who are influenced by demons in ways that causes division and the church that causes fractures in the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we have to be careful.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I want to be absolutely a hundred percent clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am not aware of any problems like this in our church today.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is not a response to issues.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is an inoculation.

[SPEAKER_00]: against future concerns.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is to make sure that we stay united together and don't see these kinds of issues pop up in our church.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it is a real danger, which is why God tells us to watch out for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, and we're going to be in 1 Corinthians 1 for a bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you want to turn there and invite us, you can.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let there be no divisions.

[SPEAKER_00]: How many divisions?

[SPEAKER_00]: No divisions in the church, rather be of one mind united in thought and purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: That word that he uses at the beginning when he says, I appeal to you, that word literally means beg or pleading.

[SPEAKER_00]: Say, I'm begging with you, live in harmony with each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: I plead with you, let there be no divisions in the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is so important to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to be of one mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to be united and thought and purpose, but the question is, okay, how?

[SPEAKER_00]: How do we do that when we do have different views on things?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, are we supposed to become identical robots that all think and do the same things?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are we just supposed to be drones?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it feels a little cool, like, is that what God wants?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we know that's not what God wants, because when we trust in Jesus Christ, the Bible says that God makes us more different than we were before.

[SPEAKER_00]: How does he make us more different than we were before when we trust him, Jesus, anybody know?

[SPEAKER_00]: How does he make us more different?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the spiritual gifts.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible says that he gives those who trusted him different spiritual gifts, and so they actually become more diverse than they already were.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we know God doesn't want sadness.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know He doesn't want us to be in some sort of a hive mind, but He does want harmony.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, we have to look at this text and say, how God, if we're not supposed to be all the same, if we're gonna have some differences, how can we be united, how can we live in harmony?

[SPEAKER_00]: And the answer is actually kind of buried in the Greek text of this verse.

[SPEAKER_00]: In verse 10 here, first Corinthians 1, there are two words I want to draw your attention to.

[SPEAKER_00]: One is the word divisions.

[SPEAKER_00]: Divisions is a metaphor in the original Greek that Paul used.

[SPEAKER_00]: It actually means a tear or a rip in fabric or a fishing net.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the word that Matthew and Mark used for rips and tears and garments and fabric and nets and things like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: The word for united is also a metaphor.

[SPEAKER_00]: It means mending fabric or fishing nets.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the word that's used in the gospels for the mending of the fish and nets that the disciples do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that's very important.

[SPEAKER_00]: The word Paul uses for united here is not a word that means all the same.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a word that means stitched together.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a word that means men.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so unity is not the absence of differences.

[SPEAKER_00]: Unity is the mending of division.

[SPEAKER_00]: Unity does not mean we all look the same.

[SPEAKER_00]: Unity is like a patchwork of things that have been stitched together to be united even though they're different.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think Quilt, not fleece.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a patchwork of things that look different, but they're mended together.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not supposed to be some sort of hive mind, but we are supposed to live in harmony.

[SPEAKER_00]: The churches have always struggled since the early days of the church with different perspectives on different things.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can see in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 11, Paul says, for some members of Chloe's household have told me about your quarrels.

1 Corinthians 1:11

[SPEAKER_00]: My dear brothers and sisters, some of you are saying, I am a follower of Paul.

[SPEAKER_00]: Others are saying, I follow a palace, or I follow Peter, or I only follow Christ, which is obviously the loftiest one.

[SPEAKER_00]: has Christ been divided into factions.

[SPEAKER_00]: Was I Paul crucified for you?

[SPEAKER_00]: Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul?

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course not.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has united you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says at the end of the chapter, God has united you with Christ Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: For our benefit, God made him to be wisdom itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christ made us right with God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He made us pure and holy and he freed us from sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, as the Scriptures say, if you want to boast,

[SPEAKER_00]: Notice that Paul includes himself in this list of the factions, not that he wanted it, not that he caused it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But some people were running around calling themselves Paulists or something like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And say, I'm a follower of Paul.

[SPEAKER_00]: And others, I'm an up-allist.

[SPEAKER_00]: I follow a follows.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so these people have divided in different factions and Paul is saying that's not what I want you to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want you to follow the theological teacher that you most align with and say well that's the tribe I belong to.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: You follow Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's keep the main thing, the main thing and what did Christ do for us?

[SPEAKER_00]: He makes us pure.

[SPEAKER_00]: He makes us holy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He frees us from sin because of what he did for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not that all those other things are unimportant.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure that the nuances in the teaching between a polys and Paul and Peter were all some valid things to discuss and interesting things to talk about.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they weren't worth dividing over, because the most important thing is what Jesus did for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: When He died on the cross and He came back to life and He made it possible for you to have new life with God and be part of the family of faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so what unites you as Christians is more important than what divides you.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were two early churches that really struggled with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were in Ephesus and in Creep, not that they were the only ones for sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: But two guys were sort of leading as kind of bishop figures.

[SPEAKER_00]: These two churches, one was Timothy and Ephesus, one was Titus and Creep.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Paul writes three letters that we have to these two guys to let them know how to handle these different divisions in the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're in first Timothy one now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Paul says to Timothy, don't let them waste their time in endless discussions of myths and spiritual pedigrees.

[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, who's teaching lineage you're following?

[SPEAKER_00]: These things only lead to meaningless speculations which don't help people live a life of faith in God.

[SPEAKER_00]: The purpose of my instruction is that all believers will be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the most important things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love, pure heart, clear conscience, genuine faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: Focus on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, but some people have missed this whole point.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions.

[SPEAKER_00]: They want to be known as teachers of the law of Moses, but they don't know what they are talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even though they speak so confidently.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want us to look at the root cause of all of this because on the surface level, you could get caught up in the individual debates that people were having about different things in Bible times about marriage and about food and about Jewish laws and things like that, but Paul goes right to the root of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does he call their arguments?

[SPEAKER_00]: He calls them meaningless.

[SPEAKER_00]: Their arguments he says are meaningless, but how do these people who are arguing think of themselves?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a teacher of the law.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they didn't think their arguments were mediales.

[SPEAKER_00]: They actually thought their arguments were pretty important.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, they thought it made them pretty important.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we have a mismatch here between how these people view what they are arguing for and the level of importance Paul says their views half.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go to the second time of the chapter two.

[SPEAKER_00]: because the first letter didn't solve it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the second letter.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, remind everyone about these things and command them in God's presence, too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stop fighting over words.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's like enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: I told you enough.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says, such arguments are useless, and they can ruin those who hear them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I say, don't get involved in foolish, ignorant arguments that only start fights.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think Paul's serious?

[SPEAKER_00]: He's pretty serious.

[SPEAKER_00]: He went from their meaningless to their useless, their foolish, their ignorant.

[SPEAKER_00]: but the people in these churches that were arguing over things, they didn't think they were useless or meaningless.

[SPEAKER_00]: They thought they were important.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because they were willing to fight over them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now that's all in Ephesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's hop over to Crete for a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because Paul writes to Titus, who's over the church and Crete and he says, do not get involved in foolish discussions about spiritual pedigrees or in quarrels and fights about obedience to Jewish laws, for example.

[SPEAKER_00]: Vinny says, if people are causing divisions among you, give a first warning, and a second warning, after they have nothing more to do with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: For people like that have turned away from the truth and their own sins, condemned them, I want you to notice this is so important what Paul did not say here.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know the types of issues that they were wrestling with in the early churches.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had to do adjuice laws, there was a lot of confusion about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It had to do with things like marriage and things like food and what food you ate and didn't ate all those sorts of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: Notice that Paul does not say here, if anyone thinks they need to follow the adjuice laws, still kick them out of the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: If anyone thinks the wrong thing about marriage or about food or anything different than what my view is, kick them out of the church, that's not what he says.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, no, if they're causing division over it.

[SPEAKER_00]: if they're quarreling and fighting over it, then warm them, warm them again, and after that, have nothing to do with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, in all of these passages, we have the same root problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is that people think their belief is more important than it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's really what this comes down to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's about marriage or food or Jewish laws, it doesn't really matter.

[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is they're taking a secondary belief, a non-essential belief, and they're treating it like it's essential and they're causing division in the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what that ultimately leads to is it distracts us from our real mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talk a lot about being on mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to be on mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has a mission in this world, and we get to be a part of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we want to grow as His followers.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to reach more people for Jesus and tell them about the awesome stuff that He does in our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we want to help people grow in their faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we're spending our time arguing over other things we're distracted from the mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why it's a waste of time for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to learn how to give our beliefs the right amount of importance.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to learn a framework that helps us to know when it's okay to agree to disagree or when it is important to actually correct and to separate.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we have to start by understanding that our beliefs belong on different levels.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some beliefs are more important than others.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe I really believe.

[SPEAKER_00]: that Jesus Christ, the Son of God came to this earth lived a perfect life and died on the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that He rose, again, I believe that He is the only way to be made right with God.

[SPEAKER_00]: I also believe that Chick-fil-A is better than raising kings.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just do.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a sincere belief that I hold, but it's on a little different level.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe, though, I believe that toilet paper should always roll over in a way from the wall.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that, thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that die-hard is a Christmas movie.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that orange juice should have pulp.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe PC is better than console.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe, and I may lose some people on this one, that pineapple tastes great on pizza.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can fight over that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe that all the hangers in the closet should be facing the same direction.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's just a deeply held belief that I have.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, are all of those beliefs equally important, definitely not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pineapple is up there.

[SPEAKER_00]: But all those beliefs are very different levels of importance.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we have to have a framework so that we know what level of importance do we give our beliefs?

[SPEAKER_00]: And so what I want to do?

[SPEAKER_00]: in the next few minutes is give you an overview of a framework, a structure that will help us to know where to categorize our beliefs.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then over the next several weeks or a few weeks rather, we are going to dive deeper into what this looks like.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to challenge you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Be here for every week.

[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure that you experience all of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: You may have been through it in the past if you've been with us for a while in the church, but this will be covered in a fresh wave.

[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be some new insights in there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we need reminders on this as a church because like I said, this may not be a problem for us now, but you better believe the enemy wants it to become a problem for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we need the inoculation.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to be prepared and ready and this is how we do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get into it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to categorize our beliefs in a four different, what we call the buckets of belief.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the framework.

[SPEAKER_00]: Four different buckets.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is preferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: Preferences are personal opinions, not based on the Bible or the leading of the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul actually gives us one of his preferences in 1 Corinthians 7.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I say this as a concession, not as a command, but I wish, that's the preference word.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wish everyone were single, just as I am.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, each person has a special gift from God of one kind or another.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you kind of get his tone there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wish everyone were single, Paul Cess.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now personally, I'm pretty glad he made it clear that that was a preference and not a command.

[SPEAKER_00]: For the movement may not have lasted that long.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he's clear on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then a few verses later, he shifts back into, now I've got some commands for you from God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what he says in verse 10.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for those who are married, I have a command that comes not from me, but from the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he wants to make it absolutely clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: That thing that I said about thankfulness, that's just me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wish my preference, I like it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's working well for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for those who are married, I guess you're okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's some stuff God wants you to know.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he's got this preference bucket that makes clear to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, a lot of us have different preferences, but all sorts of things, even within the church, and you mentioned some of them earlier, style of music or the order of the service, the sermon length, the lighting, the decorations, all of these are preferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: That here me on this aren't unimportant.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're not unimportant.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some people misunderstand, I think, oh, should we not talk about it?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not that we don't talk about them.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just we don't divide over them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because we put them in the right bucket, in the preferences bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there are some beliefs that are more important.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next level of beliefs are more important, but they might be based on an interpretation of scripture that isn't 100% clear for everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And these are what we call convictions.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the conviction bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: Convictions are personal beliefs that are biblical, they're based on biblical principles or the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but they're not required for everyone, they're not a clear biblical command.

[SPEAKER_00]: The church in Corinth have this situation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8, so what about eating meat that has been offered to idols?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we all know that an idol is not really a God and that there is only one God, in other words, his point is,

[SPEAKER_00]: Meet is me, and the idol isn't real.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not an actual thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing changes about the meat when you offer it to the idol.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then he says a few verses later.

[SPEAKER_00]: However, not all believers know this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some are accustomed to thinking of idols as being real.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when they eat food that has been offered to idols, they think of it as the worship of real gods and their weak consciences are violated.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's true that we can't win God's approval by what we eat.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't lose anything if we don't eat it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't gain anything if we do.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you must be careful so that your freedom does not cause others with a weaker conscience to stumble.

[SPEAKER_00]: So who's right?

[SPEAKER_00]: There's two factions here.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's the group that says, Meets Meet doesn't matter if it was offered to an idol.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's being sold at a discount on the marketplace.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm gonna get some cheaper Meet.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's other people that say, no, are you kidding me?

[SPEAKER_00]: I just left that lifestyle of worshiping idols and having the sacred meals afterward with the meat that was offered to the idols, there's no way I could even touch that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Who's right, Paul says, well, technically, meats beat.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't make a difference.

[SPEAKER_00]: But actually what's right is different for the two different groups of people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because the one group has weaker consciences that can be violated because they consider that

[SPEAKER_00]: We see the same thing in Romans.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Romans chapter 14, Paul says those who feel free to eat anything must not look down on those who don't.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: And those who don't eat certain foods must not condemn those who do for God has accepted them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: For you are not following your, there's the word convictions.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you do anything you believe is not right you are sinning.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we have the conviction bucket, convictions that could be different for different people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me give you one example of this.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll cover this more in a future message later in this series.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I'll just give you one example to kind of help you figure out what goes in this bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: First, us Lonion's Fives says stay away from every kind of evil.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a pretty broad statement.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are a lot of things we could look at and say that's connected to evil.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to stay away from that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to give you one example of a possible conviction that some people have.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could look at, first, that's Lonion's 522, and you could look at your social media feed and the ads that it's serving you and the things that the algorithm is giving you and say, there's a lot of evil on social media.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think God wants me to just shut it off.

[SPEAKER_00]: Close my account, stay away from it.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of evil on there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to completely stay away from that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's my application,

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great conviction, that is perfectly fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you believe that's what God is leading you to do through the interpretation of that scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: If that's what the Holy Spirit is put on your heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: What you can't do is go to somebody else and say, hey, first that's Lonion's 522 to stay away from every kind of evil.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've determined there's a lot of evil on social media.

[SPEAKER_00]: You all need to close your Instagram accounts.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can't do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because the text doesn't say, stay off all kinds of social media.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says stay away from every kind of evil.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a layer of interpretation that has to happen there, and it is meant to be a personal thing on purpose.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that is something that we would consider to be a personal conviction.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are absolutely welcome to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, if you think it's wrong for you to be on social media, and you do it, Paul would say, well, that is actually sin for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: But also, if you then go on trying to tell other people what they should do based on your convictions, and it's not a clear command and God's word, then that is also the sin of causing division.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is the conviction bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: Convictions are personal beliefs, where you are accountable to God, but others are not accountable to.

[SPEAKER_00]: The next bucket is the doctrine bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: Doctrine's are beliefs that a church considers to be clear biblical teaching and important for unity and fellowship.

[SPEAKER_00]: Doctrine in the Bible is a word that's often translated, sound teaching or wholesome teaching.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the teaching that all the believers should ideally agree on.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's teaching that's worth dividing over.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not that we treat anyone who disagrees on doctrine poorly,

[SPEAKER_00]: But we don't have to accept bad doctrine in our churches.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have to allow people to teach bad doctrine, false doctrine in our churches.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what Paul says in Romans 16.

[SPEAKER_00]: And remember, Romans 14, we just looked at, where he talks about the different convictions that people have.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, hey, you need to agree to disagree.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to make acceptance for each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to have different opinions.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's based on your conscience and your convictions, which one you should do, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Now in Romans 60, he says, and now I make one more appeal.

[SPEAKER_00]: My dear brothers and sisters, watch out for people who cause divisions and upset people's faith by teaching things contrary to what you have been taught.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stay away from them.

[SPEAKER_00]: The word for teaching there is the word for doctrine.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are the core teachings, the sound teachings that have been passed on from the apostles and the New Testament authors all the way down to us today.

[SPEAKER_00]: They ultimately come from Jesus in the Holy Spirit who inspired them and then that gets passed down to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so there are things in the Bible, in the Word of God that are clear and direct, and we should all agree on them, we should all follow them and church His identify those and they put the most important things in the doctrine in their statement of faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then a few other position papers and things like that where they say, we as a church agree, this is what the Bible says.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't agree with that, we don't hate you.

[SPEAKER_00]: We love you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can still go here, but maybe you can't be a teacher here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you can't be a member here because you can't teach something that's contrary to what we believe is doctrine.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Paul says, watch out for people who teach different doctrines and separate from those people because they're actually causing division.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul said to Titus, when he was picking church leaders and remember, this is another letter where he said, hey, don't quarrel, don't fight over meaningless things, don't fight over useless things, but there are some things that are worth fighting for.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, if you're picking church leaders, he must have a strong belief in the trustworthy message he was taught.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then he will be able to encourage others with wholesome teaching, that's doctrine, and show those who oppose it where they are wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there is a time when we need to correct.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a time when we need to draw a line.

[SPEAKER_00]: And say, we don't just agree to disagree on this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, if you're going to be a member here, if you're going to be a teacher here, then we've got to be aligned on certain things.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the doctrine.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are the things that were passed on clearly to us through scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll spend more time on this later on in this series.

[SPEAKER_00]: But just to give you another example, so you can kind of have an idea of what goes in this bucket, what doesn't go in this bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me give you a line from our statement of faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're part of the evangelical free church of America.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've about 1600 some churches across the country.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we are independent churches, but we associate through this

[SPEAKER_00]: evangelical free church association.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a wonderful group and I love being a part of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we have a statement of faith together that we all agree on that says, as the verbally inspired word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings.

[SPEAKER_00]: As the verbally inspired word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to ask you a question that you probably did not expect to hear in church today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have to be fully convinced that the Bible is without error in the original writings in order to believe in Jesus?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, you don't.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to believe that every single word of the Bible was inspired in the original writings and completely without error to believe that Jesus came and he died and he rose again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, there are some people that follow Jesus believe in Jesus but have a different perspective on how the Bible was originally written and inspired.

[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe there was more human involvement and even some human error that crept into it, but generally speaking, it's pretty good.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to believe the Bible is without error and it's original writings to be a follower of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you do have to believe it to be a member here.

[SPEAKER_00]: You do have to believe it to be a teacher here.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to believe it to be a Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we think you're wrong because we believe and it's doctrine for us that the Bible teaches that it was inspired by God, and that it is without error in everything that it teaches.

[SPEAKER_00]: Paul says, all scripture is God breathed and given to us for instruction and reproof in correction and training and righteousness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that is a doctrine that we hold to.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you go around here, now if you're struggling with that, if you're wrestling with that issue, we have people like that here, we're glad you're here.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's no problem at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you're going to become a member here, you've got to sign our statement of faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to agree with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're going to teach here, you certainly cannot teach something contrary to what our doctrine says.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is the doctrine bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to what Paul says in 2 Timothy 2.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, gently instruct those who oppose the truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps God will change those people's hearts and they will learn the truth.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a time for us to correct wrong teaching and to let people know gently with love, not with anger, bitterness, hatred, any of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: when we think they have messed up on the doctrine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the final bucket really quickly is dogma.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dogmas are beliefs that the Bible says are essential for salvation.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are the things that you hold to above everything else.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are the things that you're willing to suffer and even die for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Although I would say, doctrine is right up there too, but this just goes to the next level.

[SPEAKER_00]: Back in the letter to the Corinthian church that we looked at earlier, Paul is talking about preferences and he's talking about,

[SPEAKER_00]: convictions, and then he says in chapter 15 a little bit later, I passed on to you what was most important.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's talked about there, different convictions.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is most important.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what had also been passed on to me, Christ died for our sins.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just as the Scripture said, He was buried, and He was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scripture is said.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what are the most important beliefs?

[SPEAKER_00]: What are the most important beliefs that Jesus died for us, that he rose again, that he is the way to a relationship with God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He brings them back to Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: He brings them back to what we call the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: We think it's important for everyone to believe the truth about Jesus Christ, even if they don't understand the rest of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even if they're not so sure about some of the doctrine pieces, the most important thing is believing that Jesus Christ came to this earth and he lived a perfect life because he's a son of God and he died on a cross for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's unbelievable historical evidence for this and then he rose from the dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's unbelievable historical evidence for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now he offers to us if we will trust in him salvation from our sins, freedom from the stronghold that sin has in our life and the opportunity to be a part of a family of God, where he walks with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so many people in this room are living testimonies of the transformation that can happen when you believe in Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the most important thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not that the doctrines are unimportant.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want everyone to learn good doctrine.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we want everyone to follow their convictions.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we want everyone to live in harmony and be united even though they're going to have different preferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what happens in the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll close with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Most church conflict happens when people treat preferences like doctrines, or they treat convictions like dogmas.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to learn and remind ourselves how to put our beliefs into the right buckets.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we do that, we can live in harmony.

[SPEAKER_00]: When we do that, we can frame our conversations in the right way.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love it when people share their preferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is not a problem, but I really love it.

[SPEAKER_00]: When they say, I'm going to share this with you, but I want you to know what goes in the preference bucket.

[SPEAKER_00]: It changes the whole tone of the conversation.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how we can live in harmony, even though we might have some disagreements.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how we can be focused on the mission and the things that matter most in our beliefs, even though we might disagree about some other secondary issues.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna cover a lot more in the weeks to come.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you'll be here for every bit of it for now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just pray and ask God to guide us as a church, Heavenly Father, you've given us your word to teach us.

[SPEAKER_00]: not only what is right but also how to live, how to follow you, how to live with each other and be united together, even though we may have different perspectives on some things and this church is such a testimony to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: How we have people here from all different walks of life and backgrounds and different views and sometimes those different perspectives, they butt heads against each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet we're still here, we love each other because we love you more than anything else.

[SPEAKER_00]: God help us to be a beacon to the rest of the world and to the community of a group of people that love you so much that that overcomes whatever disagreements we may have.

[SPEAKER_00]: Help us to always remember the things that matter most.

[SPEAKER_00]: Help us to be on mission for you, reaching more people for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Being a light Monday through Saturday, not just an attendor on Sunday.

[SPEAKER_00]: God, I pray that you'd help us to be so committed to the core of what we believe, that all of those other things that are not unimportant, but not as important, what seems small and comparison.

[SPEAKER_00]: We get to celebrate today with all of these baptisms, people that have made the main thing, the main thing that have faith in you have trusted in what you did for them Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: May that unite us as a church, may that invigorate us and inspire us to move forward and be on mission for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: and in Jesus' name we pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.