OPEN: A man once told of purchasing his first pickup truck. And he also bought a book on gasoline engines because he was afraid of being ripped off at the service station. He wrote:
“The first time I took the truck in for repairs, I smugly wrote down what the problem was and what needed to be fixed.”
That night when I returned for the truck, I found this note attached to the windshield:
"I fixed the problem in your truck, but in order for me to fix the problem you described, you’ll have to bring in the lawnmower. I suggest you go back a couple of chapters. My wife has the same book.”
APPLY: Now that story puzzles me.
This guy buys a book that he doesn’t understand.
And he takes his truck to a mechanic he’s not sure he can trust.
Excuse me - if I don’t think I can trust a mechanic I’m not going to take my vehicle to him. I take my car to MY mechanic because I trust him… and because I know I can’t fix the problem but he can.
In Proverbs – chap 30– Agur is warns us to be careful NOT to treat God or His Word the way that guy treated his mechanic.
Agur starts out by trying to get us to understand that we’re not intelligent enough to correct God. He says of himself: “I’m not smart enough!”
“I am the most ignorant of men; I do not have a man’s understanding. I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One.” Proverbs 30:2
In other words… I’m not smart enough!
But then he implies that he has observed people who thought they were “smart enough”. He had seen people who misused Scripture because they thought they were smarter than God. The thought they knew more than the “Mechanic”.
“Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Who has gathered up the wind in the hollow of his hands? Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and the name of his son? Tell me if you know!” Proverbs 30:3-4
Then, lastly, Agur compared the wisdom of Scripture to the supposed wisdom of man. He wrote: "Every word of God is flawless (but man’s words aren’t flawless); he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.” Proverbs 30:5-6
Essentially, Agur is saying that you cannot begin to improve on God’s Word. And he tells us not to even presume to think that we can add anything to His Words… because God kind of takes that personally.
But that has never stopped people from doing it anyway.
Jesus condemned the Pharisees for “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” Mt. 15:9
Paul told the church in Galatia “… some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.” Galatians 1:7
And Paul warned the Elders at Ephesus to be wary because “Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to DRAW AWAY DISCIPLES AFTER THEM.” Acts 20:30
Now there’s the key to the problem.
People distort Scripture/ they add to God’s Word because they want people to pay attention to them. They want people to follow THEIR teachings.
And that’s an easy temptation to give in to.
Better churches than ours has fallen prey to it.
Better preachers than I have been enticed by it.
That’s why I personally try to protect myself from placing my own opinions above Scripture. If, during a sermon, I want to introduce a thought I have about something I don’t think I can comfortably substantiate from Scripture I try to emphasize that it is MY opinion. My opinions can be wrong, but Scripture never can. I strive to do this because I am attempting to protect myself from even accidentally distorting God’s truth.
And that’s why our brotherhood has developed a couple of mottos that we hope will keep us focused.
One is: “Where The Bible Speaks… We Speak, And Where The Bible Is Silent… We’re Silent.” In other words, we don’t want to add or take away from anything from what the Bible says.
Another is “Bible Words For Bible Things”. That is: if the Bible uses a word in a certain way… that’s the way we try to use it.
Now we may not always attain those objectives but those are our standards. In fact we’re so fiercely attached to these ideals that several years back, Time magazine declared: “The Churches of Christ may well be the most Biblebound of all American religious groups.” (Time Magazine Feb 15, 1963)
Another source described our brotherhood this way:
“In their view of religious authority, the Churches of Christ are extreme evangelical Protestants who reject the notion that the Church itself has any authority to develop doctrine or initiate practices. All authority devolves in theory upon Christ Himself, in practice upon the written Scriptures…” (http://www.reveal.org/abouticc/iccroots.html)
Now whoever wrote that comment nailed it on the head.
1. We “reject the notion WE have any authority to develop doctrines or initiate practices.” This isn’t our church. It doesn’t belong to us. Who does it belong to? That’s right, it belongs to Jesus. He is the only one with any authority here. We are only His servants and thus we’re responsible for how we handle the things that belong to Him.
2. “Any authority devolves… upon the written Scriptures.” Every word of God is flawless. And we don’t want to add to His words because He will rebuke us and He will declare us to be liars.
Those are the standards… but how does that all play out?
Well, let’s take the issue of “Bible names for Bible things”
We believe that once you begin to tinker with Bible definitions, you can end up some very strange theology.
ILLUS: The founder of the cult known as “Christian Scientists” – Mary Baker Eddy, wrote a book called “Science of the Mind”. In that book she redefined many terms that you and I would take for granted. She took Bible words and gave them NEW meanings… and thus laid the foundation for all kinds of heresies.
The only way to protect against that kind of mindset is to use Bible words the way the Bible uses them. For example:
· There are churches that call their preachers priests. The priest in many of those churches is the only one who can baptize or serve communion.
But Scripture tells us that EVERY CHRISTIAN is a priest.
1 Peter 2:9 says “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
If you are a Christian, you are a priest. You are on equal footing with me. You have the right to baptize others into Christ and you have the right to share communion with others. You are a priest.
· Not only am I not THE priest here… I’m not a “reverend” either
To “revere” something means to “hold it in awe”
Psalms 111:9 says that: “…holy and reverend is (God’s) name.”
God is the only one you should hold in awe – not me
· I also avoid try to avoid being called “Pastor”
It’s not that I get upset when people use this term to describe me (almost every other church uses the title)… it’s just that Biblically, that term applies to someone else. In Scripture that name describes the Elders.
I Peter 5 speaks of Elders as being shepherds, or pastors, of the flock. Their job is something like mine… but for me to call myself THE pastor makes it seem like my job is more important than theirs. But that’s not true, we work together in tandem to try to make this church a true body of Christ.
We also try to avoid using phrases that aren’t found in Scripture
· Phrases like “Born Again Christian”
That’s a redundancy. In the Bible, if you’re born again… you are a Christian. If you’re not “born again” you cannot be a Christian. Jesus even told us you cannot belong to Him if you are not “born again.”
The people who use that phrase are trying to say that there are dull worldly Christians… and then there are “spiritual” Christians who are alive and vibrant. But as they change Biblical terminology, they change the focus of Scripture… and we just don’t want to go there.
· Another phrase that is popular in some religious circles is “Slain in the Spirit”
Have you ever seen it? You’ll have a TV evangelist whack someone up side of the head and they fall over… and they call this being “slain in the Spirit”. I’m sorry, but that’s just not in Scripture. Not only is the term not Biblical, much of what those TV evangelists do when they do this “slain in the Spirit thing” is foreign to anything we see in the Bible.
When you see that, you’ve got to understand that somebody’s trying to pull your leg. Their trying to draw away disciples after themselves. They know they wouldn’t have nearly the crowds they have if they didn’t go through all the theatrics.
That’ pretty much what we mean when we say that “Where the Bible Speaks… we speak. And where the Bible is silent… we’re silent.”
If we ever abandon this concept, we open ourselves up to being led astray by people who would like to have you think their words are equal to God’s Word.
ILLUS: Years ago, one of my sisters lived in Dallas, Texas. She was in trouble physically and emotionally, and financially, and I’d gone down to bring her back home to Indiana. While I was there helping her pack I went to church with her. And the moment I walked in the door of that church building I knew something was wrong.
There on the wall, in the most prominent place they could put it, was a large, beautiful parchment, encased in glass. And on that parchment, in stylish calligraphy, was the prophecy of the preacher who led that congregation. When I saw that… the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
What that preacher was saying to his congregation was this: “God spoke to me. And what you see on this parchment IS the word of God.”
NO it wasn’t! What he was saying was heresy. What he had written was false doctrine. It’s not that he had written something that necessarily disagreed with something in the Bible itself... it was the fact that he had placed HIS own personal "revelation" on the same par with God’s Holy Word. That is the essence of heresy.
ILLUS: Then there was the article I recently read by a man who was trying to explain why “Scholarship” was so important to the church. He was right of course. Scholarship is important to Christians. We need those who will diligently study ancient texts and archeological sights to give us deeper understanding of the history and background of Bible times. I agreed with much of what this man wrote… but then he went one step too far.
He wrote that there were times when you would “need to rely on a more adequate interpretive principle than ‘where the Bible speaks we speak…’
He said: “You will need the guidance of people who know something about the social world of early Christianity, and moral philosophy and logic: in fact, you will need the help of scholars.”
Did you hear what that guy was saying?
He was saying that the Bible was NOT sufficient to guide us in our moral standards. We needed moral philosophy and the logic that only scholars could provide.
I’m sorry… did I miss something?
Did this scholar go “up to heaven and come down? (Did he gather) up the wind in the hollow of his hands? (Did he wrap) up the waters in his cloak? (Did he establish) all the ends of the earth?” Proverbs 30:3-4
Hmmm… I don’t think so!
What scholar is there that would ever presume to take the place of God’s Word and His wisdom in our lives? If any man or woman would ever presume to do so… that person is a fool and you and I should avoid them like the plague.
The Bible is our sole source of authority. It’s words hold the wisdom of God.
1. There is NO man or woman of authority that can ever replace it.
2. There is NO dogmas or book of doctrine that can ever supersede it
3. There are NO ecstatic experiences that we could ever go through that could ever make us closer to God
If anybody tries to tell you otherwise - avoid them, lest you be taken in by their false teachings.
NOW… not everybody agrees with this concept.
In fact, any church that tries to build itself solely on Scripture can end up being labeled legalistic or pharisaical.
Why? Because if a church becomes committed to believing that the Bible’s teachings are non-negotiable there will be people who will get a little uncomfortable with that. They become uncomfortable because there are certain teachings in Scripture that go counter to what they would like to do or think.
As one person once wisely noted:
”People do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts them.”
Now I did a word search in the Bible, and the words “legalism”, “legalistic”, and “pharisaical” do not show up in Scripture. But the concept is there. It’s found in Matthew 23:23
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices— mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law— justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”
What was Jesus saying?
He was saying that the Pharisees were very diligent in obeying God’s law. They took tithing so seriously that they would go thru their gardens picking from every 10th berry to give to God.
And Jesus WASN’T condemning them for that!!!
Good doctrine is good doctrine and obedience is to be commended.
But in the process of obeying God’s command, Jesus said they had become legalistic. They had neglected justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
In other words their doctrine wasn’t bad in this matter… it their attitude that stunk.
They had no passion for justice.
They held no mercy or love to others.
And their faithfulness was really all about themselves - not God.
Their religion was all about getting ahead. Climbing to top of the “pious” heap. And, of course, in the process of that, justice, mercy and faithfulness were dispensable. Such sentiments got in the way of putting others down so that they could look more holy.
ILLUS: Have you ever heard the old saying: “No one’s saved but thee and me… and I’m not sure of thee”?
That’s the by-word of the legalist. They not only believe it, they revel in it. Their whole mindset is focused on finding ways of condemning others so that they can look more righteous themselves.
Thus, it’s possible to have good doctrine and still be a legalistic. Because legalism isn’t about doctrine… it’s about how we treat people.
Galatians sums it up when it says “… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23
If you reflect those attitudes, you’ll never become legalistic or pharisaical.
And if you strive to build your thinking around the Word of God you’ll always have God’s wisdom to guide you in your life.
It’s because we believe so strongly in this concept: “Where the Bible Speaks, we speak” that we we sense the critical importance of offering you a chance to give yourself to Jesus.
Acts 2:37-38 tells us that “When the people heard (Peter’s sermon), they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
INVITATION
