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Week Of: August 1, 2010 Title: The People of the Word Series: Doctrine of the Church – Part 7 Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:14- 4:4 1. It has been said “Nothing can be understood till you know its history.” Do you believe that? Certainly it is true about understanding things in depth. You might be able to have a shadow understanding of some subject matter without understanding its history, but I don’t believe you can ever have a deep understanding of many things in life without going into its history.
2. If you’ve been paying any attention at all you’ve no doubt realized I believe that about being a Baptist. We need to understand our history.
3. Two weeks ago, I stated that Baptists come from a long line of trouble makers. Trouble makers who sought to reform the Church of England who, as far they were concerned, had not made enough reforms from the teachings and practice of the Roman Catholic Church.
4. These Baptist forefathers, as you know from my previous sermons, were Ana-Baptists, English Puritans and Separatists of the late 1500s and early 1600s. They challenged the religious traditions of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches that practiced infant baptism opposed to believer’s baptism.
5. By believer’s baptism, we mean that when an individual understands what it means to be a Christian they are baptized into the church and more importantly the Kingdom of God, and not before. And when I say “trouble makers,” I am not talking about just making trouble for the sake of stirring up trouble (which unfortunately most Baptists today who make trouble don’t seem to understand), but I am talking about serious matters of faith and practice.
6. Matters which seriously contradicted the Bible in the core beliefs of our faith and practice. You see whether you agree with our Baptist forefathers or not, they felt that many people who were baptized as infants never fully understood what it was to be a Christian, and therefore had a false sense of security about their salvation. To make things worse, their state-sponsored clergymen who were supported by their taxes were teaching these and other things they felt were against the Bible.
7. Baptists have generally been people of the Word. We believe that the Bible, God’s Holy Word, is the basis for what we believe and practice.
8. And until the Reformation and really the invention of the printing press common people could not have nor afford a copy of the Bible. We don’t realize just how lucky we are to have the Bible. Scripture has not always been available to the likes of you and me.
9. Even today, there are millions of people in backward and oppressed countries who do not own a copy of the Bible, nor can they benefit from a copy of the Bible because they cannot read. While you and I have multiple copies of the Bible in numerous translations sitting on our shelves that are taken for granted and not read.
10. Even after the Reformation and the invention of the printing press, the general population of people was discouraged from reading parts of the Bible. Luther felt like some parts of the Bible were not inspired by God, and eliminated from our Bible the books of Tobit, Judith, Ester, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1 & 2 Maccabees and more. Should he have done that? How would you ever know unless you have read them? How many of us have read those books? Protestants don’t read them because they are not a part of our Bible.
11. Down through history, the book of Revelation has been discouraged from being read because it contains things that common everyday unspiritual people were thought not worthy of reading and understanding.
12. The Old Testament book of the Song of Songs was discouraged from being read because it was thought to contain sensual and erotic material.
13. Understand this, in some parts of the world, a book in the hands of a literate person is considered to be the more dangerous weapon than the sword.
14. The Bible is the greatest book that has ever been written and therefore it is the most dangerous and subversive material that has come to men’s minds. Because I believe that every great and good idea that has come from the thoughts and minds of Western men and women has been directly or indirectly inspired by the Bible. The devil fears the Bible like no other book that has been written. And yet as Baptists and Christians not too many of us really know it. There is just too much ignorance about it.
15. The Baptist position is that the Bible is the first and foremost authority for the doctrine and practice of our faith. That’s the reason that on most, if not all matters of serious discussions about the meaning of life and how we are suppose to live, you will hear one if all of us say “What does the Bible say?”
16. But what happens when Baptists cannot agree? We are people of the Book…
Week Of: August 8, 2010 Title: Agreeing to Disagree Series: Doctrine of the Church – Part 8 Scripture: Galatians 1: 6-10 1. Last Sunday I spent most of our time talking about Baptists being the people or a people of the Book. After the Reformation and the invention of the printing press there arose various groups of people who practiced what we call today Reform Theology. Reform Theology is just another term for a theology that is heavily influenced by the Bible.
2. Anyway, Baptists where one of those religious groups who strongly believed in trying to live by Scriptures alone. In fact after the Protestant Reformation if you will remember, the three core beliefs that distinguished us from our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters are: Scripture alone, Faith alone, and Grace alone.
3. But in case you haven’t noticed it, people who say they strongly believe in the supremacy of the Bible cannot always agree on what they say the Bible says and means. In fact, that is one reason that among Baptists there are more than 210 denominations and growing. We cannot always agree on Bible, doctrine, and practice.
4. Some say that this is a weakness in our faith and in Christianity itself. Not so!!! It is human nature to disagree. For every human being there is usually a difference of opinion on any subject that comes up. Especially today with all the information that we are bombard with…in fact, it is really increasingly rare and exciting sometimes just to find someone who has the same beliefs/opinions that you do. “You believe that?” Yeah I believe that! Wow that is great…”
5. And really, the New Testament wouldn’t be what it is today without the variety of opinions and disagreements over those opinions. For example, have you ever wondered why there are four Gospels in the New Testament? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John instead of one? Matthew, Mark, and Luke we call the Synoptic Gospels, because when you read them you can easily see how similar they are. They are not exactly the same but they are similar to each other especially when you compare John to them. John is really different than the other three.
6. The reason there are differences in the Gospels is that each writer, and really each community that these books came from, is looking at the Christ event from a different perspective. In other words, each community sought to maintain the core teachings that they felt was so important to their faith and emphasize the differences that met their needs.
7. In addition, Paul’s letters in the New Testament where not necessarily written because Paul wanted to chitchat but because there were problems in the churches that he needed to address.
8. Some problems were quarreling that Paul felt he had to nip in the bud, like 1 Corinthians 1: 11 where he said: “Some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another “I follow Apollos”; another “I follow Peter”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
9. Others problems were more serious in nature like in our scripture this morning when Paul wrote to the Galatians about an issue that he was very upset about. Evidently there were a group of people in Galatia saying salvation is not only a matter of believing in Jesus but also a matter of being a good Jew.
10. To which Paul goes off on them, big time. Look at verse 6–9 (read), the last part of verse 9 has the Greek word “anathema” in it which means “to be damned to hell”. Now I’ve been mad at church people before but I’ve never told someone to go to “!@#%&*” before.
11. This controversy was not “officially” settled until the 3rd and 4th century, and even today salvation for some means accepting Jesus as your Savior but also working hard to be good person, or even try to be a perfect person in order to achieve heaven. The official Baptist doctrinal stance (if you can say there is one) is grace and faith alone, nothing else is necessary for salvation. Works of love, good deeds, righteous living only speaks to the salvation that a Christian enjoys—and says “Yes there is something good and wonderful that has happen in this person’s life”, but these things do nothing to get one into heaven.
12. The point I am trying to make is that while some controversies are damaging and destructive, many doctrinal controversies can turn out to be good because they help us to think, rethink, and define our faith. Without disagreements in our understanding of the Bible, many teachings and doctrinal positions would have never been explored and sufficiently thought out.
13. Since it is human nature to have disagreements, how do we go about having disagreements without letting it destroy us? One way is to keep the disagreements about the issues rather than the personality or character of the person or persons we are disagreeing with. Church fellowship, and really the cohesiveness of any social group, depends on keeping any disagreement as non-personal in nature as possible.
14. Two, every disagreement is usually centered on the issue of what is important or what is not important. One person says “Yes it is important what we believe about the Bible” another person says “No it is not so long as we love one another.” Most arguments in and out of the church start with a disagreement about whether or not the disagreement is important or not.
15. As a Baptist, I believe we should agree on the essentials—the core beliefs of our faith—and then agree to disagree on the non-essentials of our faith. However, many times what is essential to one will not be essential to another.
16. So, do you know what is important to your faith, and most importantly, why it is important? For example, some Christian groups have not always believed in the deity of Jesus Christ, while some Christian groups have denied the humanity of Jesus. Some Christian groups over emphasized the sovereignty of God, and under emphasized human freedom. Some Christian groups have believed that Jesus died for all, while some Christian groups believed that Jesus only died for a chosen few. Some Christian groups strongly believe in religious freedom, some believe strongly in religious conformity.
17. Some Christian groups believe in women deacons and women in ministry, some believe that women should have no leadership positions in the church at all. What do you believe and why do believe as you do? Some Christian groups believe that salvation is only for those who believe, others think that salvation has been universally extended to all. Some Christian groups believe that homosexuality is a sin; others believe that it is not a sin. Some Christian groups believe that abortion is wrong while others think that it is acceptable. What do you believe and why do you believe the way you do?
18. Chances are that if you are a Baptist or an evangelical whatever your belief system will be grounded in what the Bible says and you will try to orientate your beliefs to coincide with the Bible. And why not? Aren’t we supposed to be the people of the Book?
19. Is the Bible unreasonable in what it asks us to believe and do? Where do we learn about God? From the Book! Where do we learn that God loves us? From the Book! Where do we learn that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son? From the Book! Where do we ultimately learn that stealing, killing, lying, cheating are wrong? From the book! Where do we learn that we should love one another? From the Book! Where do we learn that all these are not easy to do? From life and from the Book! Where do we learn that we are sinners in need of the grace of God? From life failures and the Book!!!
20. What do you believe and why do you believe it? And by what authority do you believe the things you do? Who or what is molding your beliefs about life, God, and eternalty? Something is molding you…shouldn’t it be the Book!
Week Of: August 15, 2010 Title: Baptist Distinctive: Religious Freedom Series: Doctrine of the Church – Part 9 Scripture: Joshua 24: 14-15 1. We’ve been concentrating for the last several Sundays on our Baptist historical roots. Because we need to understand our proud historical heritage as well as biblical heritage. This morning I would like to remind you of another aspect of our history that we need to be proud of: religious liberty.
2. Religious liberty is something that most people take for granted today. We live in America and just assume that everyone enjoys, or should enjoy, the same freedoms that we do. If freedom is something that we take for granted then religious freedom is something that we especially take for granted because we have never lived in a country or a time in which religious liberties have been endangered.
3. But when the issue of freedom comes up in the Bible, it is usually the issue of Israel being in physical bondage and being set free, or the lack of freedom we have because of sin—to which faith in Christ sets us free. In Deuteronomy and Leviticus, there is the Old Testament practice of Jubilee, which says that after every seven years all servants and slaves should be set free and that all debts likewise should be forgiven (See Leviticus 25 & Deuteronomy 15).
4. In addition, there is in Paul’s writings the strong belief that Jesus Christ set His followers free from the condemnation and the curse of the Law. That namely through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit we have been freed to live a righteous life apart from the Law.
5. But freedom to believe what you want to believe and practice is not so easily found in the Bible.
6. Remember one of the Baptist distinctives is the belief that the foundation of our faith and practice is the Bible. We are a people of the Bible. The Bible is supposed to govern what we believe and practice.
7. So where do we get the ideal that religious freedom is God’s will for humanity? Maybe from scriptures like we’ve read today…where Joshua stands up before His people announcing he is “going the way of the earth” (Joshua 23: 14; I like that way of describing death).
8. He reminds them that not one of God’s promises have failed them so he calls upon them to “choose”—choose today whom you are going to serve. He preaches a sermon, his last sermon to them and gives them an invitation to choose—to decide whom they are going to worship and serve.
9. I think this is one reason, as Baptists, we believe in giving an invitation to accept Christ after each and every service. Today might be the last sermon that some of us will hear so we need give them an opportunity to choose.
10. Now in the Bible and in life, choices are not always with consequences. For example, I have the freedom to own a gun… but I also have the choice to use it responsibly. If I don’t choose to use it responsibly I, someone else, or both of us can pay a horrible price.
11. Joshua reminds his listeners that they need to choose whom they are going to serve…but if they choose wrongly, the consequences would be horrible. Read Joshua 23: 15-16. To which some would say this not much of choice.
12. So, where does the belief that all men and women should have the right to believe under God what they want to believe? Where does it come from in the Bible?
13. Maybe it is something that is at the Spirit of what the Bible teaches and does, rather than something that is spelled out. Maybe it is because our forefathers had the common sense to realize that there is something inherently evil about being forced to believe or do something that we don’t want to believe or do. Maybe it is the fact that no human being, no matter how good an intention they might have, has the right to coerce another human being to believe as they do.
14. However, it goes deeper than that, early on because of their taste of coercion and persecution by the state religion, church Baptists believed in “personal accountability to God alone in matters purely religious.” You and I have an “individual accountability” to stand before God on judgment day and answer for our time here upon earth. We want be able to blame our parents, our wives, or our husbands, or anyone else for our failures. All those people who seek to blame you and me for their personal and spiritual bankruptcy will not be able to do so. We all will have every excuse of why we have failed God stripped away from us like loose clothing, and we will have to stand naked before God with all our faults and short comings exposed.
15. Religious liberty is based upon the fact that while I may be answerable to people around me, I am ultimately answerable to God. So I must do what God wants of me—and I need the freedom to do so.
16. Jesus said don’t fear the person who can kill the body but fear and respect the person who can kill the soul. Who can kill the soul? God. I guess you could say that Baptists where a group of people who feared God more than they did man.
17. And they felt sympathetic for anyone put in a position that they had to lose their rights and freedom for their religious beliefs. So whether you agreed with other people’s religious beliefs or not, they have the right to be wrong. Yet sometimes we forget that….
18. Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was an anti-Nazi Lutheran Pastor during War World Two. He was upset about the inactivity of German intellectuals and the German churches of Germany following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. In a January 6, 1946 he gave a speech before the representatives of the Confessing Church in Frankfurt about their lack of concern for the Nazi party. Part of the speech is this:
THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
I don’t know how many German Baptists there were in World War Two, but I do know that traditionally Baptists have spoken out not only for their freedom to practice their faith but also for the freedom of others to practice theirs. Religious liberty was a Baptist belief long before it was an American belief. And for that I am proud to be a Baptist.
Scripture: Micah 6: 1-8 Many thanks to Dr. David Olive, President of Bluefield College, for leading or morning worship service today. Review Micah 6: 1-8 (particularly Micah 6:8) then "Do, Love, Walk." God is God, and we are not.
Week Of: August 29, 2010 Title: Priesthood of Believers Series: Doctrine of the Church - Part 10 Scripture: 1 Peter 2:4-9 1. When I say the word priest, what comes to mind? A Roman Catholic minister, a pagan religious ceremony involving human sacrifices, or simply someone officiating at a religious ceremony? Am I a priest?
2. Priests and priestesses have been known since the earliest times and in the simplest societies. So, a simple definition of the word priest, except in the Protestant tradition, is someone who officiates at a religious ceremony.
3. In Judaism when the Temple in Jerusalem existed, a priest was someone who not only officiated during religious services, but was thought to be a mediator between God and Israel.
4. In Christianity, especially in Roman Catholicism, a priest is the go-between between lay persons and God, who ministers the sacraments and receives confession.
5. In some Protestant circles, ministers are still called priests and do minister the sacraments, but don’t generally received confession.
6. In Baptist denominations as you well know, our ministers are not called priests. Nor do we do call what we officiate over the sacraments, but we call them ordinances, and we certainly don’t advocate the necessity of confessing your sins to the clergy. Yet, don’t get me wrong, sometimes it is helpful in confessing your sins to one another or to your minister, but don’t confuse me with God. God is the one who you must receive your forgiveness from, not me.
7. The reason we believe as we do is a doctrine that we call “priesthood of the believer.”
8. Most Protestants today recognize only one mediator between them and God the Father, and that is God the Son, Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5).
9. The Epistle to the Hebrews calls Jesus the supreme "high priest," who offered himself as a perfect sacrifice (Hebrews 7:23-28), and who sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us.
10. Therefore, we believe that through Christ we have been given direct access to God, just like a priest; thus our doctrine is called the priesthood of all believers.
11. That is the reason that Peter says we “a royal priesthood...a people belonging to God.” We are a kingdom of priests in which God is equally accessible to all, and every Christian has equal potential to minister for God. This doctrine stands in opposition to any type of a spiritual aristocracy in Christianity.
12. What do I mean by aristocracy? Aristocracy is a form of government in which a few of the more prominent citizens rule everyone. It literally means the “rule of the best.”
13. Baptists have always been a rather proud and stubborn people who have not wanted outsiders or uppity people to lord over them. In fact if a person is to have any authority over us, he or she must be one of us.
14. The quickest way to get any Baptist congregation stirred up is have someone who is not one of them telling them what to do. You cannot tell a Baptist congregation what to do until you gain their trust and then you say really nicely “please….” And depending on what kind of mood they are in, they might comply with your requests or they might not.
15. I mean I’ve been telling some of you for twenty-four years to come out to the evening service and you just look at me like I am stupid for even suggesting it.
16. And until you get it through your head that God wants you to come and learn more about the Bible or come out and worship Him then you’re not, right?
17. Why? Because you believe that you are answerable to God and no one else!!! Priesthood of all Believers—the ability to decide, rightly or wrongly, before God what is His will for your life. I can tell you what I think the Bible says and what God wants you to do, but ultimately knowing and doing God’s will is between you and God almighty.
18. I like that!!! And I’ll tell you why….because once I tell you what I want to say, I am off the hook. And once you know… then you are answerable to God, not me. You see, I don’t feel like I have to make you do anything. Now don’t get me wrong, I want you to do what is right…but you doing what is right is up to you, not me. And that sets me free…but it also condemns you.
19. The Priesthood of all Believers says that one day before judgment I am answerable to God for myself and not you. And you are answerable to God for yourself and not me.
20. On the individual level, this is called the Priesthood of all Believers, but on the church level, we call it “local autonomy.” It just means that the authority of the Bible and the authority of God and Christ are not mediated by a pope, bishop, king, or the government, but the local group of believers. We can agree to cooperate with other like-minded Baptist churches but they have no power or authority over us. We agree to cooperate with other Virginia Baptists through what we call the Virginia Baptist Mission Board but they have no power over us. We agree to cooperate with the Southern Baptist Convention on the national level, but it cannot tell us what to do or believe. We are autonomous and independent, only believing what we choose to believe under the leadership of the Holy Spirit and the inspiration of the Bible.
21. In fact, because of this independence and stubbornness, it is really hard to define what is Baptist beliefs and policy outside the local Baptist church because no one can say for sure what all Baptists believe. There are so many of us and so many of us see the faith from a different perspective.
22. Which leads me to the question: “Who settles our disagreements?” Why are there so many different Baptist denominations and church groups? The answer to the question is “we do.” There is no one else to do it.
23. If there is a disagreement over doctrine, policy, or just plain silliness, there is no one to call to straighten us out. You might say that given the absence of any higher church authority prayer, common sense, and the Holy Spirit are the only ways we have to settling things down.
24. If the Methodist church gets into a debate between its church members and their Pastor, the local Bishop steps in and decides who is right or wrong. He usually moves the Pastor because he is afraid the church will get mad and stop its giving. But the point is, there is a higher authority who can step in and settle things down. God and reason is our higher authority and we don’t always listen to Him or common sense.
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