Introduction:
A. I like the story told of the man who was shipwrecked on a beautiful, deserted South Pacific island.
1. Five years later, he was discovered by a passing a naval ship.
2. Upon their arrival at the shore the rescue party was met by the shipwreck survivor. He said, “I'm so glad you're here! I've been alone on this island for more than five years!”
3. The captain replied, “If you're all alone on the island why do I see THREE huts.”
4. The survivor said, “Oh. We'll, I live in one, and go to church in another.”
5. And what about the THIRD hut?” asked the captain.
6. “Oh,” said the survivor, “That's just the church I USED to go to.”
B. Let’s begin this morning with some fundamental questions that all of us need to be able to answer.
1. Why have you chosen to be a part of the church of Christ that meets on Wetzel Road?
2. Do you understand who we are as a church among the many hundreds of kinds of churches in the landscape of Christianity?
3. Do you understand that we are not trying to be just another of the many kinds of churches with just a little different flavor?
4. We are not trying to be the “Burger King” of churches while others are “McDonalds” or “Wendy’s” – with all of us just being hamburger joints with different names?
5. Do you realize that there are significant and fundamental differences that set us apart that need to be understood and embraced?
6. And, of course, the ultimate question is does any of this matter to God? Does God care about the differences among Christian churches?
7. Is God’s attitude: “Variety is the spice of life?” “Whatever” “Anything Goes.” “To each his own!?”
C. Let me state as concisely as I can who I am trying to be as a Christian, and what I understand we are trying to be as a church: We are simply trying to be Christians who belong to the church that we read about in the NT.
1. Our goal is to be the people who owe allegiance to one Lord and to His instruction only, and who show that allegiance by calling ourselves by his name - Christian. We are Christ’s followers.
2. We want to be members of the church that He established.
3. The church that Christ established was just as He wanted it.
4. Christ was the founder of the church and it was purchased by his blood (Mt 16:18).
5. Christ was and is the foundation and the head of the church (1 Co 3:11; Eph 1:22,23)
6. The NT contains the instructions God wanted the church to have with regard to worship, organization, conduct and mission.
7. By following those instructions only, we are Christ’s church; the church that belongs to Christ.
D. Unfortunately, many churches over the centuries have departed from the NT teachings about many things - from sexual ethics to leadership organization; from mission to membership.
1. This should not surprise us since the Apostle Paul warned Timothy and us that this would occur (This is something we talked about last week in our first sermon from this new series): “For a time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2 Tm 4:3-4)
2. History records the many departures from the NT principles and patterns that have occurred over the years.
3. As I said last week, you can find a church today that will teach whatever you want.
4. I firmly believe, but cannot historically prove, that there have always been simple, NT Christians somewhere, throughout all times since the beginning of the church.
a. These simple Christians had to meet in secrecy, and did not have the benefit of easy access to the Scriptures, yet they remained faithful to the simple, uncomplicated doctrines of Christ and His church.
4. With the invention of the printing press in the 14th century, and its ability to produce mass copies of the scriptures in the common language, people began to read their Bibles and many people realized how far their churches had drifted from the original church of the NT.
5. Leaders arose during that period calling for reformation of the church and others called for more than reformation, they called for the restoration of the original church.
E. We stand here today, as a result of God’s work among the restorers of NT Christianity.
1. Many of those restorers fled the persecution of the established church in Europe, and came to the United States of America, the new land of religious freedom.
2. Look at these words of Alexander Campbell, a man involved in the restoration movement in the early 1800’s here in our country.
a. He was often accused of founding a new religious system, but here was his reply: “We have no system of our own, or of others, to substitute in lieu of the reigning systems. We only aim at substituting the NT in lieu of every creed in existence, whether Mohammedan, Pagan, Jewish, or Presbyterian. We wish to call Christians to consider that Jesus Christ has made them kings and priests to God. We neither advocate Calvinism, Arminianism, Trinitarianism, Unitarianism, Deism nor Sectarianism, but New Testamentism.”
3. Look at these words of J.W. Tyler in 1882 as he explained our purpose, “Were you to ask of me one word which would most exactly present the central purpose of the peculiar plea presented by the disciples, I would give you the deeply significant and comprehensive word “Restoration”: For it was their purpose, as they declared in the beginning, and as, without variation they have continued to declare to the present, to restore to the world in faith, in spirit, and in practice, the religion of Christ and his apostles as found on the pages of the NT…They clearly saw, and from the beginning distinctly recognized, that in order to do this, they must ignore and pass back beyond all ecclesiastical councils, with their creeds and confessions, their speculations and controversies, since the days of the apostles, and take up the work just as these inspired men left it.”
F. Although the early church was mostly unified in doctrine and practice, the NT shows that there were false teachers, even early on, who were trying to distort the truth and draw people into separate groups.
1. To counter those teachers and their teaching, the NT writers passed on the principles and patterns of God for the church.
2. It is to some of these principles that I want us to briefly turn our attention this morning.
I. PRINCIPLE #1: DIVISION IN THE BODY OF CHRIST IS CONTRARY TO GOD’S WILL
A. Prior to his crucifixion, Jesus had prayed for his followers, saying, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (Jn 17:20-21)
1. Paul pleaded with the Corinthians in his first letter, “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” (1 Co 1:10).
2. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph 4:3-6)
B. From those passages I conclude that God desires that we all be one; He desires that there be no divisions among his body. He wants us to be unified. Notice the unifying elements…one…one…
1. And we notice, the unity God desires will have an impact on our believability and evangelistic impact on the world.
2. Many skeptics excuse Christianity because of the religious division they see among Christians.
3. The main hope for religious unity rests on the next principle.
II. PRINCIPLE #2: THE BIBLE IS THE ONLY AUTHORITATIVE GUIDE IN RELIGION
A. We believe and we call all others to receive the Bible as the divinely inspired word of God, and therefore the final and only authority in religious and spiritual matters.
1. Paul declared with reference to himself and the other apostles and prophets, “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.” (1 Co 2:12-13)
a. The message that those Spirit directed men delivered now constitutes the NT.
2. In 2 Timothy 3, Paul wrote: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tm 3:16-17)
a. So, God inspired his word, and it is sufficient to equip us to accomplish His will.
B. We will never have Christian unity if the variety of churches continue to accept as authoritative any writings or teachings other than the Bible.
1. To do so is to have conflicting sources of authority.
2. Our purpose and plea is for all people to respect the Bible as the only authoritative guide in religion.
3. One of the restoration mottos we have tried to practice is: “Where the Bible speaks, we speak; where the Bible is silent, we are silent.”
4. We attempt to do Bible things in Bible ways and call Bible things by Bible names.
5. We strive to be able to point to a New Testament passage to justify everything we teach and do.
6. Therefore, without addition, subtraction, or modification, we intend to follow the Bible and the Bible alone. We charge all others to do the same.
III. PRINCIPLE #3: PEOPLE BECOME CHRISTIANS, WHEN THEY DO WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS TO DO, AND WHEN THEY DO WHAT PEOPLE IN THE BIBLE DID TO BECOME CHRISTIANS.
A. How a person becomes a Christian is one of the most important and serious doctrines of the Bible.
1. If a person follows a plan to become a Christian that is different from the plan that God has given, are they a Christian? Do they have access to God’s grace through Jesus Christ?
2. They may be a Christian in their own eyes, but are they in God’s?
3. None of us have the right to alter God’s biblical instructions and then conclude that it will be OK with God.
4. But why would anyone want to reject the biblical plan for becoming a Christian for a non-biblical plan?
a. The two reasons I come up with are ignorance and pride.
b. When I use the word “ignorance,” I’m not using it in an ugly way. I’m saying that they simply don’t know the difference. They are uninformed. Someone told them a non-biblical plan, and that’s the only plan they know. Or they may have sincerely studied, but they are sincerely wrong.
c. Pride, on the other hand, can come in to the picture from many directions.
1. First, the person might have a pride that says, “I have always done it this way, and believed this way, and I don’t want to change now, it would be too embarrassing.”
2. Second, pride might say, “I’ve walked with God closely all these years, I know I am right with him. I cannot accept that I am wrong.”
3. Third, pride might assume, “God surely will understand and accept my attempts to be a Christian even if I did not become a Christian in the right way. I don’t think it will be that important to God.” That’s prideful presumption!
B. So, what plan did the people of the NT follow to become Christians?
1. First of all, I must emphasize that the NT plan of salvation is based on the grace and love of God as demonstrated and accomplished in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. (Eph 2:4-8)
2. The plan for personal access to the grace of God for salvation consists of having and confessing a faith in Jesus, repenting of sin, and immersion in water for the forgiveness of sins.
a. The Greek word for “baptism” is baptizo and means “to immerse, dip or plunge.
3. Jesus said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mk 16:16)
4. The apostle Peter preached, “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.” (Acts 2:38)
5. The apostle Paul wrote, “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Ro 6:3,4)
6. The book of Acts records the beginning of the church, and when we study Acts, we notice that every person was told the same plan of salvation, and all who followed it became Christians.
7. No one in the book of Acts was told to sprinkle water on their infants to baptize them, and then to confirm their faith at age 12. But that’s what many do today.
8. No one in the book of Acts was told to pray the sinner’s prayer to receive salvation. But that is what many are told today.
9. No one was told to do three summer-salts and four cart-wheels and say “Jesus” five times to receive salvation. I don’t think anyone is told that today, but if someone were going to tell someone to do something different from what Scripture says, then anything is as good as anything else, right?
10. We conclude that people become Christians when they do what the Bible says to do which is exactly the same thing that the people did to become Christians in the first century.
Conclusion:
A. So, who are we as a church? How and why are we different from other churches?
1. Please hear me clearly on this point – I believe that people in other churches love the Lord just as much as we do, and are sincerely trying to follow the Lord as they understand they should.
2. And I pray that God’s grace is sufficient to cover all of us who are sincerely trying to honor and obey God.
3. However, we have a different goal than most churches and we are willing to limit ourselves to reach that goal.
4. We want to be simple, NT Christians only, and we are willing to limit all that we believe and all that we teach to what is revealed in Scripture.
5. We believe that this is the only place where Christian unity can stand, and we believe that this is the only way authentic Christianity can be experienced.
B. I believe that our plea for restoration of NT Christianity is a beautiful one.
1. It is a call to be Christians only.
2. It is a call to go back to Scripture and lay aside any human philosophies, creeds, or names.
3. It is a call to let Christ be our only confession, a call to let Scripture be our only authority, and a call to let the name of the Savior be the only name we wear.
4. Unfortunately, some who have made the plea for people to be “Christians only” have allowed that beautiful plea to become an exclusive and judgmental attitude.
5. So rather than saying, “We are Christians only,” it is turned into, “We are the only Christians.”
6. We must beware of developing that kind of arrogant, judgmental and sectarian position.
7. In contrast to that, God would want us to express a humility that says, “We are trying to be Christians only, and trying to only have Scripture as our authority, but God is the ultimate judge, and we will leave matters of eternal judgment with Him.”
8. It may not be our job to judge our religious neighbors, but it is our job to try to share with them the reason that we are different, and to encourage them to join us in trying to be Christians only, and have Scripture be our only authority.
C. Let me end with an illustration of the importance of trying to follow the NT pattern for building the church as God wants it to be.
1. A man named Mack Lyon tells the story of being on the mission field as a young missionary and helping with the construction of a church building.
2. The person in charge gave him a pattern for constructing the roof trusses for the structure.
3. So, Mack took the pattern, measured the wood, cut it and constructed a rafter.
4. He then set the pattern aside, took the rafter he just constructed, measured the wood with it, cut it and constructed rafter #2.
5. He then set aside rafter #1, took rafter #2, measured the wood with it, cut it, and constructed rafter #3.
6. He did the same with each of the rafters, measuring the new one by the one he had just made.
7. Can you guess what happened when they tried to use those rafters to build the building? Yup! You guessed it, they didn’t fit together properly.
8. A small change in each of them, so small it wasn’t even noticeable, maybe just the width of a pencil mark, eventually added up to a difference too big to be tolerated. It was a costly error.
9. So it is with Christianity and the church. The only way to guarantee that we will continue to build properly is to continually use the unchanging pattern of the Bible.
10. Let us continually seek to be the church of Christ – Jesus’ church, the one He established, His church, doing and being what He specified.
11. May all churches find common ground for unity in that goal.
C. So, are you a member of Jesus’ church?
1. If not, then won’t you do what the Scriptures say to do to become a Christian.
2. If you believe in Jesus, and are willing to repent and turn to the Lord, and are willing to confess your faith before others and be immersed in water for the forgiveness of sins, then you are ready to become a follower of Jesus.
3. Time is of the essence, none of us know when the Lord will return, nor when our own life might be over.
4. What a shame it would be to miss out on eternal life because we kept delaying our obedience to God until it was too late!
D. And if you are a member of Jesus’ church, are you a member in good standing?
1. Are you being faithful in your walk with God?
2. Are you being faithful in worship and fellowship and service?
E. May God help us all be faithful followers of Christ, as we strive to be a faithful church of Christ.
