Avoid Foolish Controversies

Today's scripture reading comes from the book of Titus, chapter three, verses nine through fifteen.

But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

As for a person who stirs up division after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him.

Knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, he is self-condemned.

When I send Artemis or Ticma Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there.

Do your best to speed Zenus the lawyer and Apollos on their way, see that they lack nothing.

And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works so as to help cases of urgent need and not be unfruitful.

All who are with me send greetings to you.

Greet those who love us in the faith.

Grace be with you all.

It's the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

Let me get situated.

Normally I situate myself before, but I was running a little late.

Anything like that ever happened to you guys?

This is called small talk.

Thank you for joining us.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

It's great to see you all.

I always look forward to gathering to worship together on Sunday mornings, and it is just such a joy to get to gather and worship our Lord.

So this is our closing sermon and our last text from Paul's letter to Titus.

And after this, we are getting back into the Gospel according to Mark.

So, yeah, Mark fans.

So we've been moving through Mark for gosh, five years.

Uh each fall for the past five years.

We've been working our way through the Gospel of Mark.

And I'm really looking forward to getting back into that.

Uh, this is some of the most challenging um parts of Mark are coming up that are Jesus' final speeches to his disciples leading right up to the crucifixion.

Um so anyway, I'm I'm looking forward to moving through that text with you all.

But today, our job is to wrap up Titus, so let's pray.

Holy Father, you have established your church in the world, such that the gates of hell cannot prevail against her.

Lord, you hold us fast.

It is by your power, the power of your spirit, which you have lavished upon us, that we are able to hold together to you, that we might know that we are in Christ, and that we are counted righteous because of Christ's sacrifice.

And we also might know that we are in communion with one another.

Lord, because of what you have effected on the cross, and because of you drawing us to yourself and seeking us out while we were yet enemies with you, Lord, we might hold fast to you and hold fast to one another.

I pray that we'd be further equipped as a church for how to do that this morning.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So this is our last sermon, this last section of Paul's letter to Titus.

And I want us to revisit and examine that question that I opened this sermon series with, which is how is it that churches hold together?

And you can expand this.

The question is sort of how is it that any group of people holds together?

And not just holds together, but actually holds together in the identity that they really have.

You know, it's one thing to just be a collection of individuals who all think the same thing.

It's another thing to be in true communion with one another.

It's one thing to be a family because you're related by blood and it's shown on your birth certificate.

It's it's another thing to never miss a holiday.

You know, there's a there's this aspect of how is it that these groups, that that we as people can be in true communion with one another and want to explore that particularly through the lens of the church.

Now, the the this letter that Paul is writing as he has just established this young church on the island of Crete, has the odds really stacked against it that it might be a true communion of believers.

There are at least two threats that the church is facing.

The first threat is just the culture of the island of Crete.

Paul describes them as uh lazy beasts, uh liars, or excuse me, evil beasts.

Lazy beasts you don't have to worry about.

They are there, they'll just lay around.

Evil beasts, those are the ones you gotta look out for.

Uh liars and lazy gluttons.

That's, you know, they want your stuff.

So that's uh that's a wicked culture that this church is being established in.

So that's one aspect where this is going to be a difficult group of people to bond together, united in something like trust.

The second aspect of difficulty that this church has to face is the false teaching that's creeping into the church, especially through the circumcision party.

Now, these young churches are mostly being planted out of synagogues, and they are Jewish converts to Christianity.

And so there's this wrestling within the church of what do we do with these Old Testament requirements for our dietary requirements, circumcision, how it is that we are allowed to relate to Gentiles.

And then in Christ we see that the teaching of the church that Paul is planting is that all has been fulfilled in Christ.

And so, although there was a dividing line between Jew and Gentile, there is not one anymore.

We are all united in Christ.

And so it's bringing this these disparate cultures together that have practiced for centuries being apart from one another.

And there's this just recipe for division.

So what we see is the licentiousness of the culture becomes this uh backdrop for the legalism of the Judaizers that are invading the church and disrupting whole families.

And so the odds of this church sticking together uh seem pretty low.

And the difficulty that they have is that the Judaizers would have been people well versed in the law that speak in authoritative positions within the synagogue.

And from the culture, it is it is decrepit from top to bottom.

And so you might think that Paul's instruction to a church like this would be: okay, do you see the uh wicked tyrants that you're under who are both licentious and imposing these tyrannies upon you?

What you need to do is rebel against that sort of uh hierarchical structure.

And you need to remove those oppressive realities from your midst, and then that's not what Paul instructs instructs.

In fact, he calls them to uphold the authorities that they are under, and he calls for a spirit of submission, submissiveness, and courtesy to all people.

He he says, all courtesy to all people.

That's uh not what you would expect Paul's response to be in a culture so wicked and a legalism so oppressive, and yet that's precisely what Paul instructs.

And he instructs this as he explains, and as we looked at last week, at the strangeness of this instruction, it's because he understands that what holds the church together is the grace of Jesus towards them.

Because he says, remember, you were wicked, led astray, quarrelsome.

All of these things that you're you're now feeling the pain from, you were just like that.

And then God, in his great love, sought you.

He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his great mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

I know that verse because it's in the Navigator's topical memory system, which I memorized in college.

And it is uh it is one of those glorious pictures of the freedom of the gospel.

And Paul plants within his church this understanding that it is the freedom of the gospel, the defense of the freedom of the gospel, that we have been set free totally by what Christ has accomplished that allows for the unity of the church to be preserved.

Now, this week, after that positive exhortation, Paul concludes, and he's not talking so much about these external threats of the Judaizers which are coming in or the licentiousness of the Cretan culture which is coming into the church.

This week he's describing how the church starts to fracture from within and how it is that we create quarrels and divisions within the church that begin to pull us apart as these become factions.

And so Paul is giving clear instruction for how to deal with foolish controversies, dissensions, and quarrels.

So that's what we're going to look at this morning.

How to deal with these foolish controversies, dissensions and quarrels within the church.

Titus 3, 9 to 15.

Paul says, but avoid foolish controversies.

Well, that's easy enough.

Okay, fly.

You want to do this?

But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

Now, Paul had described this posture that he had required for his church, and that posture of submission, of upholding the authority structures that God has placed into the world, and of uh of courtesy towards all people.

These these patterns that Paul has established, and remembering that those are based in the sacrifice of Christ and His free grace towards us, Paul Paul says, remember these things because they are excellent and profitable.

So remembering that we have been saved by the free grace of Christ is excellent and profitable.

Those are good things.

So they they accomplish nothing.

There's it, there's the you you end up spending a lot of time and energy, and you have nothing to show for it.

That's doesn't that's not what I like to do.

I like to do other stuff.

Things that are profitable and excellent.

Now uh the text can be uh a little difficult to see precisely what he's talking about.

The way to read it is he's really talking about two topics.

Uh these topics are genealogies and chrals about the law.

So the way to read it is avoid foolish controversies, namely genealogies.

That's the way the connotation in in Greek is.

And avoid dissensions, namely quarrels about the law.

So avoid foolish controversies, namely genealogies.

That's where that's what you guys are talking about.

And avoid dissensions, namely quarrels about the law.

So let's take these in order.

Foolish controversies, namely genealogies.

I feel like this doesn't need much application to us because we're arguing about genealogies all the time.

That was meant to be a joke, but I think half the room was like, we are.

To which I'm I'm thinking, uh oh, but I've I haven't gotten my 23andMe back yet.

So maybe we are.

Remember who said that?

Yeah, Satan.

So that's how you know it's bad.

When it's in the Bible and Satan says it, it's bad.

It's called hermeneutics.

Did God really say?

Does that scripture really apply here?

Or are we just isn't this just cultural?

You know, that's another one.

Is this a uh is that really what it's saying when you see the the plainness of a scripture's teaching?

And it this can even happen with like, I I referenced um Greek this morning, but I I've even heard just like in ordinary conversation of like, uh, I don't know what it really means.

Like I'd have to like see it really in the original Greek.

And it's like, well, you don't speak Greek.

But it's this way of prod-I don't either.

I st I muddle through with inner the internet logos, which is a gift directly from the Holy Spirit to pastors everywhere, the logos application.

And there's a but my my point is that these are ways of creating ambiguity where God has given us clarity.

And the we see that this type of questioning, these foolish controversies, the point is not the arrival at the truth, but it's the creation of ambiguity.

You know, that's in the Old Testament.

I don't think the Bible is real, I don't think that really applies today.

I don't think the that the scripture is really like this is stuff that can't be parsed or it can't be known.

The Bible doesn't really speak directly to this issue.

You know, this isn't you can hear you can hear the type of the type of question.

Okay, so that type of foolish questioning is taking place regarding genealogies.

Now, why would that be happening?

Well, we see the Judaizers are the ones that are coming in, and what they're dealing with is we had this identity as the people of God, which we could trace back through time since he chose us in Abraham.

And this must mean something.

That's probably even what the question sounded like, right?

Like I can I can imagine like a couple of Jewish converts to Christianity with a sensitive conscience, and they'd been brought up with this self-consciousness of the clarity of their identity before God as the chosen people of God.

And then they hear the gospel and they believe that Jesus Christ was the true Israelite that fulfilled what they were unable to fulfill on their behalf, but then they'd be talking to one another and they'd say, But do you tell me that means nothing?

So, like this whole sense of who we are, like, does that really mean nothing?

And then the answer is like, well, it doesn't really mean it doesn't mean nothing.

Like it uh, you know, you to you were given the the prophets and and the word of God and the promises.

These were get these this means this means something, but but in terms of your participation in Christ, that was just by grace.

That was just by grace.

But you could see how that creation of ambiguity around their genealogy would be able to separate and create these factions within the church of the folks who really get the promises and then the ones who just kind of slid in the back door.

You can hear this in the way that Paul talks about his genealogy in Philippians.

He says uh in verses three through four, skip a few seven, says, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more.

Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews.

Then he goes on to explain, but whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

So he's saying, I'm able to play this game too, of establishing who's really in the church, who's really respectable, who's really worth listening to.

And if I were to play that game, I bet I'd win.

If Paul is cool, man.

But I don't play that game.

In fact, I count it, I count it all as loss compared to.

I count it all as loss for the sake of Christ.

So what's happening here is these factions and chorals are forming within the church because the church is constantly trying to establish our identity in the flesh.

Establish our identity in something that we bring to the table.

Some righteousness of our own.

But he saved us.

So there is an just being a part of the church is it starts with this utter humiliation.

He saved me.

In the story, you are the type of thing that gets saved.

You're the one that gets saved.

This is our identity in him, our champion, our hero.

So all of this speculation becomes weaponized to create these factions within the church.

A stirring up of doubt as to who is a true member of the people of God and who is not.

Secondly, Paul calls them to avoid dissensions, namely quarrels about the law.

So these dissensions are, you can see how these are he's he's talking about this thematically, he's talking about the same things that he's been talking about throughout the whole letter, as he describes the circumcision party that need to be rebuked sharply.

Then he's coming back in and he's describing how you'll how you'll probably see these things.

And they come up in just like quarrels and arguments.

So these are dissensions, namely quarrels about the law, which would likely be instigated by the circumcision party.

Now there could it could also be a arrogance of the freedom that the Gentiles would be operating in, and one that could lead to just licentiousness.

So what happens is they become seekers of chrals, and you can get this about the chorals about the law, and what happens is you get this pharisaical tendency.

To lose all sense of proportion when it comes to handling matters of the law.

So this means that you're spending time on minutia at the expense of the weightier matters, which are loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself.

And all of the rest of the law hangs upon those principles.

But if you lose that sense of proportion, the reason you would lose that sense of proportion is so that, this is what people miss about the Pharisees.

People think about the Pharisees and they think it was because they were so into the law that they were bad.

And that's not why.

They were into the law in a strategic way so that they could emphasize the minutiae, that way they could justify themselves in ignoring the important things.

So it wasn't like they loved the law so much, it was that they didn't love it.

They wanted to justify their own works of the flesh.

So they would create these quarrels about the law.

You can see now what these would do is they would create this same sort of ambiguity about matters of the law, and then that would be weaponized against people and drive them into factions.

Now we see a picture of this happening, the way that this happens, in Galatians, because Peter himself becomes a uh participant in this sort of breaking apart of the church into factions.

So many of the uh distinctions that the Jews would draw amongst themselves had to do with a diet, uh, what you were eating and who you were eating it with.

Because a pure Jew was had been instructed by the law to not eat with Gentiles.

And now all of a sudden, that this has been fulfilled in Christ and that all of our holiness and righteousness is found in Christ himself, now there's a new people created in Christ.

But what happens is, and this happens to Peter in Galatians, and this shows us exactly how this type of pressure starts to come into the church.

So Peter is in Galatia, and he's eating with Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, and they're all eating together, and it's and things are great.

Then some friends from Jerusalem show up.

Jerusalem is the biggest church at the time, so it's influential.

The most read blogs in the church.

And they what happens is they send out uh just some folks from the church in Jerusalem.

And the church in Jerusalem is also where the Jerusalem council was held in Acts 15, which was a wrestling about how it is that the Gentiles could be included into the church.

And so there's this huge council that comes in of the Gentiles being included to describe how it is that the Gentiles would be included into the church.

And many of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem were saying they have to be circumcised and they have to uphold all of the ceremonial requirements and the cleanliness requirements of the Old Testament law.

Otherwise, they are not true participants in the church.

And you could see how compelling an argument like this would be.

Because they would simply be able to say, like, has God changed?

And that feels what it what would you say if I asked you, has God changed?

Yeah, no, right?

And it and they're so they're trying to describe this dynamic which has happened, which is yes, but it's been fulfilled in Christ, that the promises towards us have been fulfilled.

Therefore, we shouldn't place a yoke upon these Gentiles that even we ourselves couldn't bear, and which we have been freed from in Christ.

We're hoping in Christ alone for salvation.

They may hope in Christ alone for salvation just as well as we are.

So you can imagine that in the church in Jerusalem, and this is where, like, you see the different dynamics in which Paul operates.

So, for example, in order to, because here's okay, let me try and explain this.

Adhering to the Old Testament customs is not prohibited.

The Jews were not being told, like, hey, if you want to eat food that is only clean, you can't anymore.

You you have to eat like the Gentiles eat.

That's not what's being said.

What's being said is you may eat like that, and they may eat like this, but that can't divide you any longer.

Do you see the what's happening here?

And so we see these instances in which Paul would circumcise Timothy so that he might demonstrate to the Jews that he's trying to reach, in you know, pretty clear way.

I've never done that to uh contextualize, so that he might contextualize the message to the people that he's trying to reach.

And you can imagine that the church in Jerusalem is seeking to reach, it's Jerusalem, you know, the Jews around them.

And so these folks from the church in Jerusalem come into Galatia and they see that Peter is eating with the Gentiles.

And what is the concern of these Jerusalem Christians?

It's we're trying to reach the Jews.

And if they see us eating with the Gentiles, our conversation stops.

It's a non-starter, all of a sudden.

We're not able to, we're not able to even connect with them or eat with them.

Now they explain this to Peter, and he's like, hey, just while we're here, it would be kind of a bummer if news got back to Jerusalem and they heard that we were eating with Gentiles.

That would cause, you know, they really don't like that there, and we're trying to reach this culture, and so that would cause a whole drama for us.

Peter's like, yeah, that makes sense.

I get that.

Now, Peter stops eating with the Gentiles.

See, and now it's a divided church again.

It's a divided church because of a worldly pressure which has now come into the church with these good intentions and it has brought division.

So Paul comes in to Galatia and he sees that Peter, who at one time was eating with the Gentiles, now because of this worldly pressure that he's experiencing from the Judaizers, is now has caused this clear division within the church.

And so what Paul says is he rebukes Peter right to his face.

And he stands up and he says, Peter, you hypocrite.

You who eat like a Gentile are gonna ask these Gentiles to eat like a Jew?

Pretty good line.

But notice what he says is he says, he says, Peter, you hypocrite.

Now, we hypocrisy is the worst thing you can do in our culture.

I think there's some generosity, actually, in Peter saying, excuse me, in Paul saying, Peter, you hypocrite.

Because what he's saying is, I know you don't really believe that.

You're acting like it right now.

You're acting like this division of the law is real.

And I get all the reasons you might do that to accommodate the people that you're trying to reach.

But you, because Peter is the apostle to the Jews.

But what you're actually doing is you're teaching a false gospel.

One that says there is something higher than Christ that unites us.

There are distinctions that are actually more important than Christ that show where our true communion can be.

And this breeds these factions within the church.

So Paul instructs Titus, avoid these dissensions.

When you see these quarrels come in, you you must stand against them.

So here's how Paul is instructs Titus to handle them.

In Titus 3, 10 through 11, he says, As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful.

He is self-condemned.

So the way that I want to describe this is what Paul instructs Titus to is patient, decisive rebuke.

Now you understand the delicate nature of this.

Because it is not as though Titus can just walk out.

You know, the threat to this church is from the Judaizers.

Like when he's talking to the Corinthians, the threat is their licentious culture.

But particularly here, he's talking to the threat of the Judaizers.

And so he says, but it's not as though Paul can instruct Titus and just say, just look at who's eating kosher.

If they're really holding to these requirements of the law, that means they're the bad ones and they're being divisive.

The answer is maybe.

But they may just have that particular conviction of conscience before the scriptures.

And they may not be doing it in a divisive way at all.

And so what's required is a patient investigation of what is what's really happening here.

How can we discern between differences of conviction within the church that are all actually demonstrating themselves as under, or that may be demonstrating themselves as truly under Christ and not causes of division?

Well, there's a litmus test that Paul gives us here, which is as for a person who stirs up division, that's how you tell.

You can't you can't tell by by just the you couldn't tell by just what they're eating.

But you can tell when they stir up division.

Now, this word for divisions is the word for heresy.

Now, heresy is one of those words that uh its meaning within Greek sort of changed over time.

Like uh our like our word um conspiracy.

That's a word that's changed over time.

Like when we when we um anyway, I don't need to do an etymology of conspiracy.

You can but a lot of times when uh when like a conspiracy is found out, we'll say like, oh, it turned out that wasn't a conspiracy, it was real.

When what we actually mean is it turns out it was a conspiracy.

Like there were people were conspiring, you know, but it means the opposite now.

So anyway, that can happen.

Just heads up about words.

Okay, so heresy begins meaning you choose something that you have chosen for yourself.

So an opinion that you haven't received from elsewhere, but you have chosen for yourself.

Then it becomes a describer of groups of people who have chosen a way for themselves, but that but a group has formed over this new chosen way.

And it also has a it has a negative connotation.

So we don't just, so it's not just like groups who choose.

Uh it's not just groups.

Uh a good way to understand this word is factions.

You know, that word it means groups in our language, but it also you can feel the negative connotation.

You know, like you don't say like uh I'm the we're the ice cream faction of the social.

You know, that's uh you're the group.

Okay.

So uh what you look for is this has been this has actually developed into factions around these particular things.

So there's recruitment going on, and there's backroom dealing, and there's gossip, and there's undermining, and you can hear it because there's questions that are consistently being asked to create ambiguity where there isn't any ambiguity.

And there are means of undermining the uh uh the very things that Paul and Titus have laid out for the church.

And then these come in, and when you see those factions start to develop, and you notice, like, you know, it seems like it seems like this group of the Jews never eat with their Gentile brothers and sisters.

I think I need to confront them about that.

It may be something, it may be nothing.

They might just be better friends.

You know what?

That's allowed.

But it might be actually the creation of real division.

So as for a person who stirs up this division, so you see the division stirred up, and uh like Peter does, it's like, I feel like Peter, you're not talking like you talked when it was us here in Galatia.

You're kind of talking like we're in Jerusalem.

Then you confront the after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful.

He is self-condemned.

So this is the pattern, and it is just, don't you see that Paul is just walking through the pattern of Matthew 18, which is the way that Jesus describes how to handle a brother who sins against you?

And he instructs this very thing.

It's a threefold, it's a confrontation, a confrontation with someone else, a confrontation before the whole church, and then if repentance is still not discovered, then he's saying, then you have enough reason to know.

So we give one another the benefit of the doubt until there is no doubt.

So that that the church must have this immune system.

The reason that the rebuke is patient is because you may discover, it's not it is not as though you discover, hey, this faction actually wasn't a faction, it was fine.

That you may discover that, and you may just be wrong.

You may discover this faction actually was a faction, but there's repentance.

And you know what?

Remember what Paul taught us to know?

You know what?

I've made some factions.

I've been a part of undermining things that I shouldn't have been a part of undermining.

And the Lord was gracious to me.

Like we that that can happen and will happen.

It's just the nature of being people together.

And so it must be patient until it must be decisive.

And it is decisive for the sake of those who have strayed from the gospel so that they might know clearly you have strayed from the gospel and might be brought to repentance.

And it is decisive for the sake of the church, so that the church might be protected from the contagion of dividing along lines that deny the reality that he saved us.

You yourselves were once led astray, Paul had sin, but he saved us.

All right, let's go through the greed the final send-off with a few more words from Titus.

To Titus.

Titus 3, 12 through 13.

When I send Artemis or Tychochus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis.

For I have decided to spend the winter there.

Do your best to speed Xanus the lawyer and Apollos on their way.

See that they lack nothing.

Now, Paul is just his life is is out outrageous.

He plants a church in like three weeks, and he's uh it's sort of like uh how you know how like Gandalf is just writing shadow facts really fast in the background everywhere, and then you and then it's like, oh, he's holding everything together.

He's holding the whole thing together.

That Paul's kind of like that throughout the story of Acts.

So he has his eyes on the church in Crete, and he intends to send Artemis and Tychus to relieve Titus of his time there.

Now, what Paul is seeking to do is he's wanting these churches to become indigenous so that they are led by the people in those communities.

But that tran that sort of transition takes time.

And so he understands that the church in Crete is not able to lead themselves yet.

And so if Titus is to leave, he must be replaced, and he's gonna be replaced by two people who would relieve Titus, and they might be able to uh spread more broadly through the island to support more churches at once, to care for these different people that are in the church.

And then once Titus is relieved, he will go and meet Paul at Nicopolis, which is on the mainland.

And they will be reunited and they will head off on their next adventure, but they Paul decided to spend the winter there.

Paul requests that he immediately do his best to speed Xanus the lawyer and Apollos on their way and see that they lack nothing.

Now, uh Apollos and Paul had worked closely together, uh planting the church in Corinth, and they were trusted co-workers.

And so Apollos must have been in Crete with Titus, and so now he's requesting that they would uh come to Paul in Nicopolis, and that they would be able to encourage one another and continue planning for how to care for the church.

And then he he uh tells them to uh see that they lack nothing.

So this means that they couldn't afford on their own to make the trip from Crete to Nicopolis.

But Paul needs them.

And so that means it's now the church's responsibility to give in such a way that they would be cared for.

And this is the church's responsibility to give in such a way so that the ministry of the gospel can be advanced, not just here, but wherever the gospel needs to advance, which checks notes, is all nations, tribes, and tongues.

Verse 14 says, and let our people learn to devote themselves to good works so as to help cases of urgent need and not be unfruitful.

Paul's saying, like, look, I know what you're thinking, I gotta ask these Cretans for money.

And the uh uh Paul sees that the need of Zenus and Apollos is an opportunity for the church to learn to devote themselves to good works.

That the The need and the ability God has placed into the same church perfectly.

So that this church might learn hey, we pursue good works, and so we will meet this urgent need.

And we will not be unfruitful.

Finally, verse 15, a sign-off, which is just a friendly sign-off.

All who are with me send greetings to you.

Greet those who love us in the faith.

Grace be with you all.

And I want to finish with just this reality, this main point that I think we can glean from this letter.

How is it that a church can stay together?

How is it that a people, sinners like us, can stay together?

It is the grace of God that allows us to stay together, to be in true communion with one another.

When we understand that it is Him who saved us, that this is what finally unites us.

When we hold fast to that and we resist the pressures of divisions as they seek to encroach against that, the grace of God holds us together.

In light of this warning against factions, how should we think about denominations within the church?

You should try and get your church to join one.

So the disunity within the church is lamentable.

And I I don't know what the Lord is doing with his church.

I don't know why there have been so many splits and divisions.

I don't know why the Catholicity of the church, the universality of the church, which we confess each Sunday as we read the Creed, is not more visible.

We had our elder retreat this past weekend, and it it was wonderful.

And we read through uh over our time John uh 14 to John 17.

And in John 17, Jesus prays the high priestly prayer before he goes to the cross, and he prays for unity among his people, that we would be one as he is one.

I'm tempted to do some gymnastics with that prayer and say they're and just default to a spiritual oneness.

You know what I mean?

And just say, well, we are.

Because there is a real sense where that's true.

You know, all of Christ's people are in him, he knows the number of the elect, and they are his and they're unshakably his.

But I I think that I think that the unity of the church ought to be more visible.

I think one day it will.

In thinking through denominations themselves, these are ways of, these are means of participating in a higher level of unity within the church.

So if we're comparing denominations to no denominations, it is it is not a comparing of uh absolute unity in the no denominations because we are united to everyone, and then disunity in the denominations because they are clearly drawing lines.

No, there is uh uh a greater level of unity in the denominations.

But it is also a disunity.

Look, here's one thing I know for sure.

If Jesus prays it, it's gonna happen.

And he prays for that unity within the church.

I don't know how that will what that coalescing will look like.

Um it will require greater levels of of purity within the church, and I and I pray that he will bring that.

That's for that probably doesn't feel like an answer, but here we are.

First Corinthians 11.

23.

It says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.

That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you, do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.

Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

That is why many of you are weakened ill, and some have died.

But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.

But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

And the night before Jesus was betrayed, he took the bread and he broke it, and he said, This is my body, which is broken for you.

And he took the cup and he said, This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood.

And he calls us to participate in the reality that his grace has been lavished upon us by him breaking, his body being broken, and his blood being poured out, so that we might be joined in a meal of communion with him and with one another.

It is his grace that holds the church together.

So come to the table under his grace.

If you've been baptized and you are a Christian and you confess the name of the Lord Jesus, we invite you to the table.

If you are of an age where you are too young to be able to examine yourself, or if you find in examining yourself that you are not able to take the bread and wine in true faith, then abstain.

Because this is a table of the unity under his grace and of cutting off anything that is outside of his grace.

Let's pray.

Holy Father, we thank you for your care for your church.

We thank you for your preserving of your church for so long, and you're continuing that to this day.

And it is a hope that we have throughout all the ages that you will preserve your church by your grace.

Lord, we praise you for your loving kindness towards us.

I ask that you would bring peace into our body, and that you would help us to grow in love and care for one another as we hold fast to your gospel.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.