Overcoming Church Problem #1: Disagreements & Divisions Series

Did you know that I was personally baptized by none other than Charles Swindoll? Perhaps I should say Dr. Charles Swindoll! Yes, the same Charles Swindoll who is daily on Christian Radio and is the founder of the Insight for Living radio broadcast, who has written about 70 very popular Christian books and is probably one of the best Bible preachers of the past 50 years.

How did it happen? Well, just about 50 years ago I was part of a group of Campus Crusade students at Cal State Fullerton who attended the First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton, which was at the time pastored by the relatively unknown Charles Swindoll. The staff director of Crusade at Cal State Fullerton suddenly realized that he hadn’t made any effort to get the students he was discipling baptized up until that time, and he arranged with “Chuck” to baptize us one Sunday night. “Chuck” even commented after baptizing me that baptizing Jim Wallace had been a unique experience. That’s because during my testimony, as I gestured a bit too and in so doing, accidentally caught some water in my hand and tossed it into the crowd.

So how about that?

How important is that! Well, who baptized me is actually not very important at all. What was important about my baptism is that I was baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the whole reason I bring up my baptism pedigree is that it was precisely because of petty things like that which the Corinthians took pride in that there had come to be quarrels and divisions within the Church at Corinth.

And what we find this morning that is quite amazing, is that out of all the problems that plagued the First Church of Corinth, Greece, the first problem the Apostle Paul addresses was not the incest in the church that church members were proud, or the people who were getting drunk during the Lord’s Supper, or the false gospel that many were entertaining. The matter of greatest concern for the Apostle Paul, and for the Lord Jesus Christ was this whole matter of the unity, or in this case, the disunity that was infecting the church.

Now as a young believer, even as a seminary student, it never occurred to me that church unity could be such an important issue in a church’s life. The first time it was suggested to me, honestly, by my professor of pastoral ministries at Dallas Seminary, Dr. John Reed, I was somewhat surprised. But after 35 years of ministry in a local church that has unfortunately involved some disunity, believe me, I totally understand why it was such an important priority for the Apostle Paul, and why it is so important to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Why is it important? Because division and dissension commonly destroys many churches, yes even Bible-teaching churches like ours. As Jesus Himself rightly said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And many a church that has been divided against itself has not survived. Ours has only survived these circumstances by the grace and power of God.

Division in church, commonly known as church splits, also destroy and discourage the faith of many believers. Divisions destroy Christ-like love, and ruins relationships, which in my experience, are often never restored. They also destroy the testimony of Jesus Christ among unbelievers, who, as they watch a church fall apart because the people can’t get along, ask this question: Why would I ever want to be a part of that? They can’t even get along with each other. How could they be of any help to me?

And the final reason it’s so important is that disunity, division, and split churches is absolutely not God’s plan or will for His people. You know whose plan it is? And I thoroughly believe this: it is Satan’s plan. He is often involved with the dividing churches even as he is involved in many other nefarious and deadly activities.

So exactly what was going on in the Church at Corinth that had Paul so concerned? Well, as we have read this morning, the people in the church began to divide themselves into cliques supporting and promoting a certain teacher or leader as being better than, or themselves as being superior to others in the church. Some people followed this teacher or that teacher, and each clique began to pridefully consider itself and its leader as better than or superior to the others. It was a recipe for disaster.

What does Paul tell them: He tells them to prioritize unity and love over pride and selfish ambition in God’s family in submission to the Lord Jesus.

He tells them to stop dividing and start uniting in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I Corinthians 1:10: “Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.