I'll tell you the story of a church that no longer exists.
It was actually a church that was instrumental in my
life and, and my wife's life.
Uh, it was a church that I attended while I was going to seminary.
After college, I ended up back here, and I went to Dallas Theological Seminary,
and while there, we attended a church, uh, together, Amanda and I did, that
taught us a lot about what it means to be a part of the local church.
We showed up in one of our first weeks there as relatively newlyweds, uh,
without kids at this point in time.
They said, "When are you gonna sign up to serve in the nursery?"
And we said, "Well, we don't have kids."
And they said, "Great.
When are you gonna sign up to serve in the nursery?"
And that began to teach us that being a part of the local church was
being a part of the local church.
It was serving wherever you could serve to, to help the body of Christ.
And so we did.
We served in the nursery.
And in spite of that, we still had five kids even after we served in the nursery
with other people's kids at the time.
It taught us about that.
It taught us about the importance of community.
Uh, we got involved in a small group, and, and that was something
that, uh, was expected of us.
"Hey, we want you to get plugged in, get connected."
And so we got involved with a small group, and, uh, the leader of that small group
became one of my mentors, is still one of the men that's been most impactful
on my life and my own walk with Christ.
And we attended there, and we served there, and, and then after I graduated
from seminary, the Lord called me up to Kansas City, Missouri, in
that area, and I served up there for three years at a church there.
But what happened after we left was really the tragic part of this story.
After we left, there was division that arose in that church.
That church began to factionalize, and eventually the senior pastor resigned,
and when he resigned, he took a large portion of the body with him when he left.
And what was left was a shell of what had once been there.
In that shell of what had once been there, they, they tried to sustain things.
They tried to rebound.
They tried to keep things going and, and say, "Well, we, we can do this."
And so the, they took the associate pastor and made him the senior pastor,
and they limped along for a few more years before they realized, you know what?
This is just not working.
We're not effective, we're not faithful, we're not able to keep doing what
we once were so effective at doing.
And so in a great tragic turn of events, they closed their doors.
And so a church that was so impactful for my wife and I, so formative for our
understanding of what the local church is and what it means to be a part of it,
isn't even around anymore because of what we're gonna be talking about this morning.
The title of the sermon is, is Fight Together.
It's an important distinction.
It doesn't say fight each other, but fight together.
And what we're fighting is disunity in the body of Christ.
What we're fighting is one of the most prevalent threats that exists in any
church anywhere, and that is the notion that we would begin to divide, that we
would begin to factionalize, that we would begin to drift apart and allow issues
that are not tier one gospel issues to become fodder for sowing discord in the
body of Christ that is meant to, as we read in Philippians, strive together
side by side for the faith of the gospel.
Christ has saved, like I talked about last week, not just a
person, but a people, a, a, a body.
The church at large is realized through the church locally,
through this place, and as such, we have a mission from our savior.
Remember, this is God's church like we talked about week one, and as such, we
have a mission that he wants us to be faithful to accomplish, but if we become
divided, then that mission is at risk of completely falling apart, at least here.
And so this mission is so important, and this message is so significant, that I
just wanna encourage you to make sure that, that you tune in, because you have
just as much a part to play in the unity of the body of Christ here as the pastors
do or anyone else does in this church.
If you tune out on this topic, on this subject, on this mission, you could be
the source of division that leads to the downfall of the Bride of Christ.
What Paul has to say to us this morning is that important.
As we consider the mission of the church, here we base that on the Great
Commission, reaching people for Christ, teaching people to be like Christ,
and training people to serve Christ.
If we aren't united, that mission will never be accomplished
I want you to look at the, the text that we're gonna be in this
morning as I read it for us.
It's gonna be verses 10 through 17 in 1 Corinthians chapter 1.
I'll read it out loud.
It begins in verse 10.
He- Paul says, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, that there be no divisions among
you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.
For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you.
What I mean is that each one of you says, 'I follow Paul,' or 'I follow Apollos,' or
'I follow Cephas,' or 'I follow Christ.'
Is Christ divided?
Was Paul crucified for you?
Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one
may say that you were baptized in my name.
I did baptize also the household of Stephanas.
Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with
words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."
What we're gonna see in this passage is just like Paul wanted
for the Corinthian church, I want for our church, and that is this.
If our mission is to remain central, okay, our mission, reaching people for Christ,
teaching people f- to be like Christ, training people to, to serve Christ.
If our mission is to be central, and we're not gonna to, to drift or become
ineffective as a church body, then unity has to be here in the church body.
Let me put it this way, our big idea is this.
If the mission is to remain central, unity is essential.
If our mission as a church is, is to remain central to our identity, who we are
as a church, then this, what we're talking about here this morning, is essential.
It's a non-negotiable.
If we become divided, we've lost the battle already.
So for us as a church, it's so important that we fight together, that we fight
together, that we strive side by side together for the faith of the gospel.
And let me tell you, right now, we're doing a pretty good job in this area.
I'm thankful that I'm not standing up this morning preaching to a church that
is dealing with pockets and factions of, of divisiveness and division.
But here's what I know to be true, i- is we can't take that for granted.
What I know to be true is that if we're not on guard together as the church, if
we're not fighting together, if we're not striving side by side together,
if we're not looking out for pockets of divisiveness in the church, then
it won't be long before I am standing up here preaching to a church that
does have pockets of division and factions and divisiveness in the church.
And so I'm so grateful that right now I get to preach to a church that is united.
We are together.
We're three years into this church, and we're striving side by side,
and that is good, but we have to remember, y'all, that we have to, to
labor together to preserve that unity.
Point number one this morning is this.
Preserve the unity of the local church.
It comes here from verse 10 where he says, "I appeal to you, brothers,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree and that
there be no divisions among you."
And so Paul's appealing.
It's an emotional word here.
I'm urging you, church, he's saying.
A- a- and not just because of his love for them, but also because
of whose church it is, right?
He says, "I, I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
That goes back to week one.
This church is God's church.
This church doesn't belong to a pastor or a group of elders, or
it doesn't belong to a, a, uh, the loudest members in the church or the
longest time members in the church.
This is Christ's church.
And as such, Paul's appealing as his affection for them, but also under
the authority of Jesus and as an apostle of Jesus, and he's saying to
them, "Church, be united together."
You ever been on a long road trip with your family in the car?
People that you love, right?
These are your family members, and yet spend a long enough time in the
road trip on the car and what happens?
You don't love them nearly as much as you did at the beginning
of the road trip, do you?
Some of you do.
That's nice.
M- m- my family, w- w- we've got, we've got seven of us, right?
So it's my wife and I and our five kids and, and we like to take road
trips because flying is … We would have to mortgage our house.
Um, and we've already told our kids that one of them gets to go
to college, but not all of them.
So, so we don't fly 'cause it's way too expensive, so we drive.
Well, we get in the van and everything starts out great, mostly because
they're asleep 'cause we leave early.
But then what happens?
Well, the, the, the children wake up and, and here comes the disunity.
Where are we gonna stop for lunch?
We're gonna stop … If you're really healthy, just plug your ears for a second.
We're gonna stop at McDonald's for lunch.
I don't wanna stop at McDonald's.
I wanna stop over here.
Uh, well, can we, can we go here?
Do we have to leave at this time?
Can we leave later?
Can we d- disunity just, it just happens, doesn't it?
Second law of thermodynamics, right?
A- an object is gonna lose its energy over time.
It's the law of entropy, right?
Things trend towards disorder, not towards order.
A- and so that's true of unity in the body of Christ, too.
I- i- i- it's, it's right now something that my wife and I are realizing with
our, our foundation of our house.
It is, after a decade of existence, trending towards
disunity rather than unity.
If we're not on guard as the church, if we're not working to preserve unity as
the church, that's gonna happen here, too.
We will, because of being in close quarters with each other as a family,
and that's right and good, we should be in close quarters with each other,
but because we are being saved, we are being sanctified right now, we
still have some of the old man that there's vestiges of hanging around.
Which means what?
We're going to offend each other.
We're gonna sin against each other.
We're going to step on each other's toes.
And if we're not careful to work to preserve the unity of the
church, it could become disastrous.
Paul says here, "I appeal to you by the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ that all of you agree."
The word agree there means to say the same thing.
Say the same thing.
That's what it is in the Greek.
That all of you be in agreement on these things and say the
same … Don't say different things.
Okay.
Well, but about, about what?
Say the same things about what?
This is where it's important for us to understand that there is a, a level of
triage when it comes to, uh, agreement and disagreement in the church.
So there are tier one issues, and I believe that's what Paul here
is referring to when he says, "I'm appealing to you to say the same thing."
I say, I think he's, uh, appealing to the, the level one issues here.
Then there are level two issues, tier two issues.
Tier two issues are important, but it's not gonna divide
Christian from non-Christian.
And so a lot of times in the church, you wanna be in agreement
on a lot of those tier two issues.
You wanna be able to say the same thing as one another in the
church on the tier two issues.
An example of a tier two issue might be, for example, end times,
the timing of Christ's return.
Is that a salvific thing?
Is that a Christian, non-Christian thing?
No.
No, we can have disagreement on that and still be brothers in Christ, or
brother and sister in Christ But there are, are level one issues where we would
say, "Okay, th- this is an area where we're not gonna say, 'Well, you think
this and I think that, but it's okay.
We can still call each other brothers in Christ.'"
And I think that's what Paul is saying when he says, "Say the same things."
What are those tier one issues?
Well, this list is not exhaustive, but I do have a list up here of some things
that this week I was thinking about.
I think these are some of the tier one issues that we wanna work hard at
as a church to make sure that we are preserving unity, that we are saying
the same things when it comes to this.
And so you'll notice the first one there is the Gospel.
We don't wanna have a, a gospel that's different from the, our
brothers and sisters in Christ.
We wanna have the biblical gospel.
We wanna have the gospel that says that being saved is by grace alone,
through faith alone, in Christ alone, that it is surrendering to Jesus
as your Lord and Savior in faith.
We don't want a gospel that says, "You know what?
If you do enough, then God will make up for the rest of it."
That's a false gospel.
We would reject that outright and say, "No, that's a tier one issue."
We, we need to say the same thing here.
Another issue might be biblical inerrancy and authority.
What I mean by that is that the Bible is without error.
We're not gonna say, "Well, some of this is reliable, but not all of it.
Uh, there, there are some passages in here that need to be updated
to catch up with the modern world.
And so we're gonna, we're gonna be okay with some of the Bible or most
of the Bible, but not all the Bible."
We would draw a line there and say, "No.
No, that's not okay."
That's a tier one issue.
We need to say the same thing there, that God's Word is inerrant and it is
authoritative, that we don't sit in authority over the Word of God, but we sit
under the authority of the Word of God.
That's a tier one issue for us.
Or the true deity and the true humanity of Christ.
Almost all of the heresies that came out of the early church had to do with
misunderstanding or overemphasizing one side or the other of the hypostatic union.
That is the union of Christ's true humanity and true deity.
We wanna be in agreement on that, that He was truly God and truly man.
Trinitarian theology, that God exists as Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, three persons, one God.
That's an area we don't wanna d- deny that.
We can't say, "Well, you think that, but I think it's just one God.
Sometimes He's the Father, sometimes He's the S- Son, and
sometimes He's the Spirit."
That's modalism, Patrick.
Um, couple of you have seen that video.
We wanna be in agreement on Trinitarian understanding of
things, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the future return of Christ.
See, these are things that I think if we deny these things, then we're on
shaky ground as far as whether or not we are somebody who would be in Christ.
We need to say the same things here.
Now, if, if some of these things are, are new to you 'cause you're newly saved,
and you'd say, "Well, I d- I don't know that I know about all of these things.
It, it … Does that mean I'm not a Christian if I don't know
about all of these things?"
No.
There's a difference between whether or not you can affirm all of these
things because you understand them all, and whether or not you would
come out and openly deny them.
What we're talking about here is if we're denying tier one things, then
we're not saying the same thing, and that's where we would have an issue.
And I think that's where Paul is saying, "Hey, I want you to say the same thing."
In other words, I want you to have unity.
We need to work to preserve the unity of the church, and one of
the things, ways that we do that, y'all, is by making sure that we have
agreement on these tier one issues.
Paul says that there be no divisions among you.
The word for division there is the word for tear.
So I want you to, to picture a, a fisher's net.
The, the, the fisherman back in the, the first century here, back in Paul's
day, they would go out, and you remember w- the disciples used to do that.
They would take their fishing nets, and they would throw them over the side,
and they would haul in their catch.
Well, a, a tear in a fishing net is no good, is it?
Because why?
The fish can get out.
If … So if your mission is to catch fish, then you want
a net that is wholly intact.
Well, the word division here means a tear or a rip, and it was used to refer
to tears or rips in, in those nets.
And so Paul says, "I want there to be no divisions among you but that you be united
in the same mind and same judgment."
The word united is the word for mending.
And so he refers to the use of the word for tearing of a net, and then he
uses the word for mending that tear.
And so Paul, unlike me, 'cause again, I think we're doing well
here, Paul's writing to a church that wasn't doing well, and we're
gonna see that in just a minute.
So he's saying, "You have divisions.
I want you to mend them.
I want you to, to repair what's been torn so that you can be effective
in the mission of the church.
For the mission to remain central, unity is essential."
And so this church was at risk of losing their effectiveness on mission
for Christ because of these divisions.
"But I'm urging you that you be united in the same mind and same judgment."
Have the same mindset, the same outlook, the same consent to
specifically, again, these tier one issues So how are we doing as a church?
I've already showed my cards as, as far as the local church goes,
but what about the church at large, the big C, capital C church?
How are we doing in being united overall?
I want you to just take evangelicalism for just a moment and just think
of the hundreds and hundreds of denominations that exist under
the umbrella of evangelicalism.
And then I, I want you to consider w- we're one of those that we
are called non-denominational.
We're a non-denominational denomination.
And, and under that umbrella, there's hundreds of non-denominational churches
out there, and all of those churches have different methods of doing things.
They're gonna do things a little bit different, have a different
liturgy, different approach.
Maybe they're gonna use the ESV, which is what we use, and another church
is gonna use the NASB and, and then you go down to the next, or maybe
it's a, a higher level up than that.
We're gonna have differences of opinion on some pretty significant
tier two issues, aren't we?
And so in denominations, you're gonna have some denominations that
are gonna say, "Well, we believe in the next event on the, the end times
roadmap is the rapture of the church."
That's where we would stand as a church, that the next thing is Christ is coming
back to take His church to be with Him.
You're gonna have other churches that are gonna say, "No, uh, rather,
the, the millennial kingdom is a metaphorical thing, that Jesus is
reigning metaphorically now, and so the next thing is He's coming back
to defeat Satan and to establish the, the new heavens and the new Earth."
And you'll have other churches that are still different than that.
Those are tier two issues, but those are differences, and we tend to group
together in churches that are different, uh, from, from one another, but same…
And, and here's my argument, y'all.
I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing.
I don't think that that's a bad thing.
I don't think that the existence of denominations points
to an ineffective church.
Rather, what, the argument that I wanna make to you i- is, is
this: I think denominations allow us to be more effective And
here's why I'm gonna say that.
Here's why I'm gonna say that.
I- if you thought for a second … Okay, w- we're gonna go back to that list
here, that, that list of essentials.
If you thought to yourself, "Okay, i- if it's all about this, let's just all
agree on this, and let's just jettison denominations, and let's just all get
together and pool our resources and just we'll be, we'll be the united church.
Shouldn't that be what it is?
If, if tier one, we should all agree on that, can't we just blow up denominations
and just all get, get along together?
Shouldn't … Wouldn't that make us more effective?"
W- well, let me push back on that just a, a little bit.
Okay, and I'll just use this example.
We here at this church, and hopefully this is not a shock to anyone, but maybe it is.
If you're new with us, it's probably good that you hear this.
Uh, we are complementarian in our understanding of the role
of men and women in ministry.
Here's what that means.
That means that we believe that the Bible teaches that the office and role
of pastor is exclusively reserved for men, that that's God's design, that
it's not an issue of superiority or inferiority, but it is simply an order
of leadership that He has established for the church, and that that's
what He teaches in the scriptures.
Okay?
Not all churches and not all, and I use this word intentionally, not all
Christians agree with me on that.
So if we jettison denominations, now we're all just together.
Let's all get together, okay?
And we're all gonna be together, and we'll just take turns.
We'll have pastors from different denominations, or used to be
denominations, not denominations anymore 'cause we got rid of those.
We'll have different pastors come up, and they'll just take turns in the pulpit.
Okay, you've got a sect of, of, of those that are complementarian in their
understanding of the role of, of the office of, of a pastor and elder here,
and then in the church, you've got a group of egalitarians over here who
believe that, yeah, women can be pastors.
Okay?
So now all of a sudden, it's the, the turn for the, the female pastor
who used to pastor the United Methodist Church down the road.
We're all in agreement on these things, but now it's her
turn to come up and preach.
She's gonna come up here and get behind the pulpit, and now all of a sudden
you have this group of those that are complementarian in their understanding
of what a, a pastor should be, and they're sitting there, and they can't
get past the fact that we've got this disagreement on a tier two issue.
But what it's doing is it's preventing the Word of God from being heard and
received in the, the most effective way possible, and it's creating the potential
for divisiveness in the Church that's gonna hinder the mission of the Church.
Instead, as we gather in here this morning as those that are complementarian,
and we hear the Word preached, we're not distracted from that.
And down the road at the Methodist Church, when the female gets up, and
she gets behind the pulpit as a, a pastor according to them, and she
preaches, we're in agreement here.
We're gonna check all these boxes together, and so we can say, "Hey, we're
gonna see each other in heaven, but we're gonna worship in different churches."
And what that does is it frees both of us up to be as effective as we
possibly can at the mission of reaching people for Christ And so I don't think
denominations inherently are a bad thing.
I think they make us more effective than they would be if we tried to
say, "Let's jettison everything, and then just all get together and try
to work out our tier two issues."
So could we be more united as a church, more together for the gospel as a church?
Uh, y- yes, I, I think there's always room for that.
But on the other hand, I think these denominations are, are not
necessarily something to be despised.
I think they're something that we should look at and say, "Okay, if the church is
faithful and agrees on those essentials, then man, that church should get together
and, and reach people for Christ as they're doing it with full focus on the
mission, and we're gonna do that here, and this other church down the road is
gonna do that there, and this other church down the road is gonna do that there."
And we should be able to celebrate that and praise God for that.
What about us here in this room?
Again, I think we're doing well.
I do.
But even in this room, there's gonna be differences.
There's gonna be things that, uh, that we're going to maybe be like-minded
on and, and other things that, that there's gonna be more tension here.
There may be…
As long as all of us are on the tier one issue together, yeah, we're, we're
in agreement of that, great, fantastic.
There may be some tier two issues here that you hold a different position,
for example, than I do, and that's okay, so long as it doesn't become
a source of division in the church.
I- if I'm up here and I'm preaching, I'm preaching, "Hey, I, I believe
that the Bible teaches the next thing is the rapture of the church,
and that there's a future for Israel that God has," and you're sitting
out there and you're going, "Okay, my understanding, my interpretation is
different from that," that, that's fine.
We can be brothers and sisters in Christ, and we can agree together, and you
can even continue to be a part of the fellowship of the body of Christ here, so
long as it doesn't lead to divisiveness.
And so there's room for, for, for difference here.
Here's my point: unity does not equal uniformity.
Those two things are not the same.
Unity does not equal uniformity.
There's room for diversity, even on some of the, the positions on tier
two issues within the body of Christ, and we can still work together for
the accomplishing of the mission
That said, there, there may be times where those tier two issues
do rise to the place where for you, you would say, "You know what?
Out of love for this place, and out of a desire to be most effective in
serving Christ, I- it probably is good for me to go on and, and find
a place where I am more in agreement with where they're at on that issue."
If it becomes something that you would say, "Man, this is a distraction to me,
uh, a- and so f- so that I'm not tempted to, to create division here, and so
this church can remain united and keep doing the work of the ministry, then
it's probably best for me to go and, and plug in with a church where I'm gonna
be more in agreement on that issue."
That happens, and that's okay, so long as on your way out, you're not putting
the church that you're leaving on blast.
A- and I would also just add one more caveat, come and talk to us.
We, we would love to know why o- on, on the way out, if that's you.
I hope no- that's none of you, 'cause I, I love all y'all, and I want y'all here.
But I'm just saying, sometimes that, that does happen, and we
make those decisions, again, why?
For the unity of the church.
That's one of the ways we preserve the unity of the church.
And so as we're here, we work to preserve the unity of the church,
because if we don't preserve it, then it won't be here for much longer.
And so when we see seeds or when we find opportunities to, to, to be divisive,
we wanna fight against that in our own hearts, but if we hear it in anybody
else, we wanna call that out and we wanna say, "Hey," lovingly we wanna say,
"Hey, h- have you talked to the person?
Have you talked to the pastor?
Have you talked to your community group leader about this?
Have you talked to the person that you're in disagreement with about this?
It'd, it'd be better for you to go to them than to be, be talking about
that here with all of the rest of us."
We can work towards mending those tears whenever we see them.
And that's not just my job or Pastor Rod's job or Pastor Marc's job or Luis' job.
It's all of our jobs.
We work together towards the unity of the church.
The disunity in Corinth showed up in these factions that had emerged,
and that's where Paul goes next.
Look at verse 11.
Paul says this.
He says, "For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there's
quarreling among you, my brothers.
What I mean is that each one of you says, 'I follow Paul,' or,
'I follow Apollos,' or, 'I follow Cephas,' or, 'I follow Christ.'
Is Christ divided?
Was Paul crucified for you?
Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
I thank God that I baptized none of you except for Crispus and
Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name.
I did baptize also the household of Stephanas.
Beyond that, I don't know whether I baptized anyone else."
If this wasn't the main issue facing the, the Corinthians, this was a
major issue facing the Corinthians.
After all, Paul is kicking off the body of the letter by addressing this issue.
He's introduced himself, like we talked about week one, and then last
week we focused on his thanksgiving prayer for the, the church there,
and now he turns to the body of the letter, the meat of the letter, and
the first thing out of the gate he's saying is, "Hey, you guys that are, are
identifying with all these different factions, we, we gotta stop doing that.
We gotta stop doing that."
Paul's not gonna chastise the Corinthians for learning from Apollos
or from Cephas or from himself.
He's not gonna combat Apollos or Cephas as though they're teaching any false
doctrine, because it wasn't about that.
Rather, the thing that he's gonna go after them for is he's gonna say, "In,
in elevating these men, you've missed the, their point and the point overall.
You've put them in a place that only Christ should have Christ is the
foundation of our unity here as a church.
As we're working to preserve unity, as we're fighting for, for unity,
fighting together for unity, then it's important that we remember
that, that Christ is the foundation.
And so wh- whoever your favorite pastor, whether he be a, a celebrity pastor,
a well-known pastor, or the pastor at your last church, or your favorite
podcaster, or your favorite author, whoever it may be, learn from them,
benefit from them, but make sure that they spur you on to a greater devotion
to Jesus and not to become a, a, a disciple of just the, the man himself.
Second point this week, you can write it down this way: Don't let your
favorite Christian divide the church.
Don't let your favorite Christian divide the church.
And when I say that, I, I'm not implying that this is a problem with
the pastor, just like Paul was not implying that this was a problem with
Apollos or with Cephas or with himself.
We'll get to the Jesus group in a, a minute there.
That's an interesting one.
But rather, it's a problem with us, with our view of them.
And so verse 11 tells us here that, that this woman, Chloe … And
you say, "Well, who is Chloe?"
I don't know.
She was most likely a, a wealthy businesswoman there in this,
this region, and she had people that, that worked for her.
That's what her people mean, probably her servants.
And so Chloe would have sent her servants on business for her, and it seems,
'cause Paul was writing the Book of 1 Corinthians from Ephesus, that these were
people that were based in Ephesus but would go back and forth between Corinth
and Ephesus on business for Chloe.
Well, because they were part of the church, because they were Christians,
when they traveled … And this is a, a, a s- sidebar lesson for us, too.
When we travel or when we go on vacation, we shouldn't travel and, and skip church.
We shouldn't go on vacation and go on vacation from church.
You should travel and go and say, "Where am I gonna go to church this week?"
And so Chloe's people are doing just that.
So they go over to Corinth, and they're there on a weekend, and so
they go to the Corinthian church.
And while they're at the Corinthian church, they start h- talking to
some people, and they're saying, "What's going on here in Corinth?
How are things going?"
"Oh, things are great.
Things are great.
You know what?
I'm, I'm, I've been here from the very beginning.
I'm one of Paul's.
I, I've been here with him.
He's my guy.
And, uh, yeah, so if you need anything, come find me because I, I'm with Paul."
They're like, "Okay, great.
Awesome."
And they go over here to the cookies and the donuts 'cause
that's what every church has.
And we don't have cookies.
I guess maybe we do, do today.
Anyways, they go over there, and they're talking to people behind the table, and
they're getting their cup of coffee, and these people are like, "You know what?
We're with Apollos.
Have you heard Apollos preach?
Man, his style, his power, whoo.
Yeah, you, you need to hear Paul.
Apollos is the guy.
I know they said about Paul, but really it's about Apollos."
O- okay.
A- and then they go to the welcome booth, and they walk up to the welcome
booth, and they're, they're talking to people back at the welcome booth, and
the people back there are like, "Hey, you know, you've heard about Peter, right?
Yeah, Peter.
No, yeah, the guy, the guy that cut off the hi- the ear of the high priest?
He led me to Christ.
He baptized me.
Yeah, Peter did.
Yeah.
I, well, I know there's Paul over there and, and Apollos over there,
but Peter was one of the original 12.
He's my guy."
And so that's what's ha- so, so now Chloe's people go back to Paul
and they're going, "Paul, this is what's going on over in Corinth.
What, w- is this normal?"
And Paul is writing now to the church in Corinth saying, "Um, no, it's not normal."
Let's talk about these groups for just a, a, a, a minute, a little bit more.
So you have these factions that are forming there in the church,
and they, they're people that would've been influential in the
Corinthian church specifically.
So Paul makes sense, right?
Because he was the one that, that helped plant the church there
in Corinth, Acts Chapter 18.
And so the, there's the OGs, right?
I- in our church, these are the people that were with us when we
had our original vision me- meetings for, uh, for, for our church plant.
We've been with Pastor Ron and Pastor PJ from the very beginning.
We've been there the whole time.
We're the OGs.
And then you had Apollos.
Well, Apollos also was present there in the church in Corinth, and they
had benefited from Apollos' ministry, and we know from Acts Chapter 18 that
Paul, Apollos was different from Paul.
Paul will say, "Hey, I, I came to you in weakness and in
trembling in, in my speech."
Apollos is characterized by boldness and clarity and wisdom in his speech.
And so there was a group that was, that was saying, "Man, I, I kinda like Apollos'
style better than I like Paul's style."
And so they were beginning to gravitate towards Apollos and be like,
"Well, we're, we're with Apollos."
Cephas is, is different because we don't know of any specific reference
to Peter having gone to Corinth, and yet it appears that he was there.
In fact, later on in 1 Corinthians Chapter 9, Paul's writing about those
that have wives, the apostles that have wives, and he cites the fact that
Cephas has a wife as something that the Corinthians would've already known.
So it appears that Peter did go to Corinth at some point, and likely had a hand in
maybe sharing the gospel with some or baptizing some that were there, and so
some were identifying with Peter as well.
And then you have the, the I follow Christ group.
This is the first Jesus juke that's ever been recorded in
the Bible, ever in history.
Th- they're saying, "Well, we've got Jesus, and that's all we need.
We don't need to learn from Paul.
We don't need to learn from Apollos.
We don't need to learn from Cephas.
We're just Jesus people."
Th- those may be the people today that, that they'll say, a- and well-intentioned,
but they'll say, "Well, well, I'm just a biblicist, and so I'm separating myself.
I'm not gonna be influenced by MacArthur or by Piper or by
Sproul or by any of these guys.
I j- I just, it's just me and the Bible."
But even that can be a position of pride in our hearts.
A- and that's what was at the root of the Corinthian division, was this, this pride.
A- a- and so the problem is, is this.
H- have you ever known anyone to take a picture and to, to show
you a picture in a picture frame?
Have you ever known anyone to be obsessed with the glass on the picture frame?
No.
Nobody looks at a picture frame and thinks, "Wow, look at the glass.
That glass is pristine.
Where did you get that glass?
Is it Italian?
That's can't be Hobby Lobby.
I know Hobby Lobby glass, that's better than the Hobby Lobby glass.
Where'd you get that glass?"
Nobody does that.
In fact, most of the time you don't even know the glass is there, because why?
What's the glass there to do?
The glass is to emphasize the clarity of the picture.
The glass is there to magnify what's behind it.
That's the preacher, that's the podcaster, that's the author, that's the influencer.
We are simply the glass meant to magnify Jesus.
If you're looking at us, if you're identifying by us, if you're
saying, "Man, MacArthur's my guy.
I love MacArthur.
Whatever says MacArthur says is the word of God."
I went to Masters.
I love John MacArthur.
He was a brilliant man, and I'm so thankful for his ministry.
But if he ever caught wind that he was the reason for divisiveness in the church, he
would be grieved to his heart over that.
He's not there for you to be obsessed with him.
He's there for you to, to grow in your obsession with Christ.
He's the glass on the picture frame, not the picture.
Jesus is the picture.
And so the problem here in Corinth was you had all these people
saying, "Well, I'm of Paul.
I'm of Apollos.
I'm of Cephas."
And they were all saying, "My glass is the Pauline glass.
My glass is the Apol- Apollosinian glass?"
Whatever.
"My glass is, is the Petrine glass.
Look how great my glass is," instead of saying, "Look how great Jesus is."
And so church, as, as we think about our favorite Christians, if I can put it that
way, we need to make sure that we love them because they make us love Jesus more.
And that in no way are they going to lead to any sort of divisiveness in the church.
You say, "Well, how would that happen, Pastor PJ?
If, if they all agree on those essentials too, how would that happen?"
Well, it, it may be that at some point in time, and maybe I already have, I
might preach something where my take on, on a tier two issue might be different,
for example, than John MacArthur's or than John Piper's, or let me bring
it out of the realm of the celebrity pastor, I may preach something that's
different than the pastor that you had at your last church and what he preached.
And you know what?
You may disagree with me.
And that's totally fine, so long as it doesn't become grounds for going then to
your community group and saying, "Well, I can't believe Pastor PJ preached that.
I don't agree with that.
This is what's really right."
And I'm not saying you can't disagree with me or you can't have conversations with me
or with Pastor Ott or with any of us here.
This is not a grab for pastoral power, but rather this is a plea
for the unity of the body of Christ.
If this is something that raises to that level where you feel discomfort
enough to say, "I, I need to talk to somebody about it," then talk to the
person that you have the issue with to begin with, and then let's see
what we can do to work through that.
Or say, "You know what?
Yeah, that's not my take on it, but I get it.
And so for the sake of the unity of the body of Christ, I'm
not gonna make this an issue.
I'm not gonna bring that up and, and sow seeds of discord.
I'm gonna be careful about that."
Paul says, "Is Christ divided?
Surely not."
It's implied there in the Greek, surely Christ is not divided.
Surely he's not divided.
He asked the question, "Was, was Paul crucified for you?"
No.
"Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?"
No.
In fact, he says, "I'm even grateful that I…
I don't even remember how many people I baptized," is what Paul's saying there.
Except for a few of these guys.
Not because he thought less of baptism, but because if people were gonna elevate
who they were baptized by to become a source of boasting in the church and
factionalism, Paul's like, "I'm glad that you can't boast about me doing that.
You need to boast about Jesus."
It's him.
We need to follow Christ.
Is Christ divided?
No, of course not
There's nothing wrong with having, you know, your, your guy.
Again, i- if you are influenced by John Piper or by, you know, Charles Stanley or
John MacArthur or Alistair Begg or R.C.
Sproul and, and th- that's your guy, or y- you really learned so much from
the pastor at the church that you used to go to, praise God for that.
Rejoice in that.
Learn as much as you possibly can from that.
That's not the problem.
The problem comes when we elevate them to a position that
they were never meant to have.
The problem comes when they become the picture instead of the glass.
That's where the problem is, and when that happens and, and
that leads to this division or this factionalism in the church
Your guy, whoever that is, should cause you to love Jesus more, to love the church
more, but not to love him more, right?
In the sense of elevating him to that position of he's the, the be-all, end-all
It's, it's sad to see what's happening in the church in this in, in some ways.
Some of you may be keeping up with what's going on with, with G3 right now.
If you don't, then that's fine.
But there's, there's just, there's, there's division in the church right now.
It's not good.
And so again, I'm thankful that right now we're not there, but remember point
number one, we gotta work to preserve that, and one of the things that we
gotta guard against is making sure that our favorite Christian doesn't become
a reason for us to divide the church
Christ is not divided.
Was Paul crucified?
Surely not.
In other words, Paul's saying, "Let's get our focus back where it
needs to be," and that is on Christ
Paul's gonna conclude his argument by reminding us that the battle that
we should be fighting is not one with each other, but it, there is a battle
that is worth fighting, and it's the battle for the souls of the lost.
Look at verse 17.
Paul says this, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach
the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of
Christ be emptied of its power."
Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with words
of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
What's happening here is this.
This was a time in world history where wisdom, sophistry was, was elevated.
If you could, i- if, if you could pontificate, if, if you could speak
well, and with great eloquence, and with great clarity, and with great
logic, and employ logical arguments and everything, you were held in high
esteem, and people would follow you.
And, and these speakers would get their groups that would
follow and identify with them.
And so Paul is drawing that in, and this is gonna continue for the next
handful of, of weeks in 1 Corinthians.
He's, he's pointing to that, saying, "We can't be like the world in this,"
because the weapon that God has given us to fight the battle against the enemy
and to see lost souls come to faith in Christ, it's not the wisdom of the
world, but it's the folly of the cross.
And so Paul is gonna point to those things and saying, "Hey, you know what?
We do have a battle that we do need to be engaged in," and that is a battle
indeed that is something that all of us as the church need to own, and we
need to understand what it is, why it's important, and how we need to fight it.
But you can write down our third point this way at least.
Don't lose sight of that battle.
The … Don't lose sight of the battle that is worth fighting So I wanna study
the battle that is worth fighting.
Paul was laser-focused on his mission.
He knew his mission.
"Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel."
And again, he is not undermining the importance of baptism, but he's saying
between the two, what's more important?
The gospel.
'Cause unless the gospel comes first, baptism doesn't happen.
In fact, we know this, Matthew 28, which tells us that not only was this Paul's
mission, but it's our mission too.
Matthew 28:18-20, "Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven on,
and on Earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to
observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age.'"
Go therefore and make disciples.
The way that you make disciples begins with the gospel.
That has to be there.
That's our mission.
That's what we need to be focused on as the church.
That's why we take from the Great Commission our mission, which is to reach
people for Christ, teach people to be like Christ, and train people to serve Christ.
That's what we are here to do as a church, and so we need to be, like
Paul, out there preaching the gospel.
We need to be convinced that that is what Christ has called us to do.
We do have a battle.
We talked about it in our study of 1 Peter chapter 5, "The enemy
is prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."
Satan hates what we are doing here this morning.
Satan hates the fact that you are surrounded in your neighborhood by
unbelievers, and you might have the desire to reach them with the gospel.
He hates that.
And so you have a battle to go out and fight this week, and you need to fight
it with the right thing, which is not to get distracted on, on a bunch of other
things, but to make sure that you are fighting like Paul was by emphasizing
the, the straight-up most fun- fundamental aspect of our mission, which is to reach
people with the gospel of Jesus Christ
Can apologetics be helpful in our presentation of the gospel?
Yes.
Yeah.
Lots of north-south, up-down on that one.
Okay?
But, but has apologetics ever saved anyone?
No.
An apologetic argument has never made a follower of Jesus.
Only the gospel makes followers of Jesus.
So apologetics, can they be useful?
Yeah, but that's not our battle.
In other words, can, can it help for you to go out and use an apologetic
argument like the cosmological argument or the ontological argument, uh, for
the existence of God to get somebody who would deny the existence of God
to believe in the existence of God?
Is that helpful?
Yes.
But does that save that person?
No.
All you've done is now they're gonna go to hell, but only they're gonna
go to hell believing that God exists.
Or i- i- if you convince somebody using apologetic arguments that absolute truth
exists, right, you make the arguments.
They say, "There's no such thing as absolute truth," and you say, "Okay,
but is that an absolute truth?"
And so y- y- you, you get them and you're like, "Okay, you believe in absolute
truth," but you never get to the gospel.
Then they're only just now going to hell believing in absolute truth.
Or you use the, the argument of the moral existence, uh, the, the existence
of God comes down to morality.
The only way to understand morals and to be consistent with morals
is for a moral God to exist who gave us the objective standard.
Otherwise, it's simply survival of the fittest, which has
no objective moral standard.
And so if you believe in right and wrong, then you must believe in a god.
Okay?
If you get there but never get to the gospel, then all you've done
is send somebody to hell who knows the difference between right and
wrong because it comes from God.
Apologetics can't save.
The gospel saves.
And so I'm just saying, y'all, we need to be about the right things.
Can apologetics be useful?
Sure, but only if they get you to the gospel
Y'all, we, we have to be on mission as a church.
We have to be fighting the right battles.
We have to be sharing the gospel.
We have to be telling people that they need to come to faith and repentance in
Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
We have to be sharing the gospel.
That is that, that people are sinners, born sinners, and they are stained
with a guilt that is … You can't bleach it with enough righteous deeds.
It is permanently on you, and that guilt has driven you apart from God.
But God, in His love for you, sent Jesus to live a perfectly obedient life for you.
The life that you could never live, Jesus lived for you, and then He died
on the cross for the sins that stained you so deeply and so permanently.
Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and that death was the death that, that
caused God's wrath that you deserve to be poured out on Jesus instead.
And then what happened?
Well, Jesus gave you His perfect righteousness, the righteousness
that He earned during His life in obedience to the law.
Jesus did what we couldn't do and then gave us credit for it at the cross,
and He took our sin on Himself, and He died for our sin there at the cross.
But then God, in His great love for us, didn't keep Jesus dead, because death
couldn't hold Him because the payment was accepted, and Jesus, three days later,
walked out of the grave, never to enter again, which gives us hope that we will
walk out of the grave someday as well.
That's the message that saves us, to repent from your sins and put your trust
in Jesus, that He did that for you, that He was your substitute, that He died
in your place, and that He rose again.
To surrender to Him as your Lord and Savior.
That's the message that we need to be about, and we need to be fighting this
battle, y'all, because time is running out
I don't know if you've been looking around, but, but let me just
read this passage, Mark 13:7-8.
"When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don't be alarmed.
This must take place, but the end is not yet.
For nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom.
There will be earthquakes in various places.
There will be famines.
But these are just the beginning of the birth pains."
I'm not here to set dates.
Those people are, are in a whole heap of trouble of all of their own.
But I am here to tell you that the end times are here.
John even wrote, "This is the last hour."
The signs of the times are upon us.
If we're gonna be faithful as a church, we have to be faithful to
the mission that God has given us of reaching, teaching, and training.
And, and I just … There's so much infighting taking place in
the church right now about stuff that just is absolutely inane.
And it's, it's, it's so detrimental to the effectiveness of the church
It's hindering us, it's slowing us down, it's holding us up, and
Satan is just dancing as we fight about stuff that keeps us distracted
from the battle worth fighting
Y'all, as a church, we're, we're fighting about the moon.
We're fighting about outer space.
We're fighting about the shape of the Earth
And it's a total waste of time
Because none of that changes the mission of the church
I, I believe we're on a ball that's spinning at 666,000 miles
an hour, and I don't believe it's a government conspiracy.
Some people do.
Who cares?
Let's hang out together and, and, and pursue the lost with the gospel of Jesus.
Let's stop arguing about stuff that doesn't matter anymore
I mean, we, we give so much of our time and attention to trying to
figure stuff out like that, and Satan's like, "This is fantastic.
You could be useful to the Lord
I'm so thrilled that you're doing what you're doing right now.
Keep going
We'll figure it out when we get to heaven.
If I'm wrong and, and you're right, I'll come say sorry to you.
But in the meantime, can we just realize that it doesn't change anything
about the mission of the church?
What we're here to do
We need to be about reaching people for Christ, teaching people to be like Christ,
and training people to serve Christ.
That's the mission of the church, and if we're not united together,
then that mission is not gonna happen
Again, I think overall we're in a pretty good position right now, but
I don't wanna take that for granted
I would've said that about the church that Amanda and I were at
while I was going through seminary.
While we were there, I would've said, "Yeah, this is a church
that's pretty united together."
They're, they're pursuing the the mission of the church until they weren't
So this is immensely important for us to get right, church.
And to remember that this is not just the job of the pastors.
This is not just the job of, of ministry leaders.
This is not just the job of the mature Christians.
This is the job of every single Christian in the church to work together
to pursue the mission of the church
If we're gonna do that, if the mission is to remain central, unity is essential.
Let's pray
Father, thanks for saving us and bringing us into a, a church, into a body of
believers, into a, a relationship with, with others in this room who
are brothers and sisters in Christ.
Even if we've never yet met them or known their name, they're our
brothers and sisters in Christ.
They're part of our eternal family.
We're gonna spend forever and ever with them because of Jesus.
God, I pray that you would keep us united as a church.
God, I, I pray that you would guard us from factionalism.
I, I pray that you would guard us from looking at the glass
instead of looking at the picture.
Lord, make us a church that is all in with Jesus and His mission for us.
Lord, help us to show charity and grace and, and mercy towards each other, even
on those issues that we might not fully agree on, so that we can unite together
and say, "Yeah, but let's strive side by side for the faith of the gospel."
And so, Lord, we, we love you.
We thank you.
We, we praise you that we get to do this as a church, and that you've been kind
to us for these last three years to keep us largely just together and united.
And I just pray that you would continue that, and that we
would each take seriously our responsibility towards that end.
Thank you for this morning.
Thank you for Jesus.
I pray that we'd have a great week serving Him.
In Jesus' name, amen.