OPEN: There was a famous singer back in the 70’s named Jim Croce. He wrote songs like “Time in a bottle,” “Don’t mess around with Jim”, and others. One of the last songs he wrote began with these words…
“Like the pine trees linin' the windin' road, I've got a name, I've got a name. Like the singin' bird and the croakin' toad, I've got a name, I've got a name.”
And the next phrase in the song says “And I carry it with me like my daddy did…” ("I've Got A Name" written and performed by Jim Croce)
He carried his name like his daddy did? What could that mean? Well, guess what his daddy’s name was? Jim Croce. He was named after his father. In that song Croce was honoring the memory of his father and he was saying in that song that he was proud of his father’s name. His own name was the same as his dad’s and that gave him his identity. He bore his father's name... and when people called his name - he knew WHO he was.
Now, my question for you this morning is this: Do you know WHO you are? Do you know WHAT NAME you bear????
Acts 2:38 says we are baptized “... IN THE NAME of Jesus Christ.” We BEAR the name of Jesus! That’s why we’re called Christians. “Christian” means a “follower of Christ.” Paul wrote to the church at Corinth … and said that he was “determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” 1 Corinthians 2:2
Do you know WHO you are? Do you know WHO you belong to?
Now, you’d think that would be a “gimmee.” You’d think it would be obvious who we belong to! But too often people forget. Too often people take their eyes off of Jesus and turn their gaze to someone or something else that they attach themselves to. And that was a problem even in the days of the early church.
Paul wrote “My brothers, 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 Cephas’ (another name for Peter); still another, ‘I follow Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no-one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” I Corinthians 1:11-17
In other words, some of the people in Corinth had TAKEN their eyes off of Jesus. They began to brag about who had baptized them into Christ. And Paul was saying “I’m glad I didn’t get in the middle of all that!” Yes, he’d baptized a few people there, but he usually left the baptisms to someone else and focused on preaching. And that was a good thing, because then he wouldn’t be put in the embarrassing position of upstaging Christ. Paul didn’t die for the Corinthians – Jesus did!
ILLUS: Recently a friend told me “you’re an Arminian.” In other words, he was stating that I believed in the religious teachings of a man named Jacobus Arminius, who maintained that men and women have a free will (as opposed the teaching of Calvinism that essentially denied that). Now, while it was probably true that I agreed with Arminius on this, I responded to my friend: “No, I’m not an Arminian. I’m a Christian. Arminius didn’t die for me. And while I may agree with some (or all) of his teachings, I don’t belong to him. I belong to Christ… and that’s all I want.”
You see, once you or I wrap ourselves around a mortal teacher like Arminius, or Luther, or Calvin, et.al. – we might begin to want to defend that teacher against all comers. And that’s not a good thing.
In our brotherhood, some of the foundational thinkers were Thomas Campbell and Raccoon John Smith. (yes, we had a famous preacher named Raccoon John Smith) These were decent men who shared a common desire to return to Scripture as the sole basis of doctrine and authority in Christ’s church. And I agree with them. But they didn’t die for me. I belong to Christ, first and foremost and always!!!
Can I hear an amen?? (pause). No, of course I can’t hear an Amen – you’re not here. We’re in quarantine! But if you were– I’d make you give me an AMEN!! because we should be Christians ONLY!!!!
In fact, that’s why one of the mottos of our brotherhood: “We’re not the only Christians, but we intend to be Christians ONLY!” Our desire is that folks should know nothing more than than that we belong to Jesus Christ and that He was crucified for us.
Now, theologically, that means we want to make Jesus and His book our sole authority. Acts 2:36 says “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." Jesus has total authority as our Lord and Christ. And His book (the Bible) – tells us what He wants us to do. That’s why our brotherhood has another motto which says: “No Creed But Christ, No Book But The Bible.” Essentially, that’s saying our ONLY real source of authority is Jesus and His Book! We strongly believe in the words of II Timothy 3:16-17 which says “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Now, while you’d think most churches would buy into that - in practice many of them don’t. Too often churches feel they owe an allegiance to their creeds, to their books of doctrine, or to their governing bodies. It’s as if they place those creeds, doctrines and other authorities on top of Scripture and then filter God’s Word through those sources.
ILLUS: Years ago, some men in our brotherhood initiated something called ONE BODY. It was an outreach to various denominational groups to see if we could find some common ground in Scripture. Its objective was to just get people talking with each other. They did that because they were confident that Scripture had the power to break down the barriers between different groups.
The format of the gathering was to have a couple of their men preach, and then 2 of ours in the sanctuary of the church building where the meeting was held. Then we’d have a “break-out” session in Sunday School classrooms where folks from their churches, and folks from ours would set down and talk about things - just to get to know each other – and understand our differences.
But after a couple sessions I began to notice something: in the main sessions our preachers would get up and preach without notes, looking the audience in the eye and preaching with a power and confidence that came from years of experience. BUT their preachers would get up and do this (I mimicked reading notes). Every one of them read verbatim from their notes… word for word. So, in the breakout session I asked what was going on? And one of their men replied: “Our preachers have to submit their sermons to headquarters to make sure they fully conform with our doctrine.”
Now, to someone like me that sounded bizarre. It apparently wasn’t enough that their preachers preach from Scripture… they had to toe the party line. By contrast, there was no one to tell our preachers what the “party line” was. All our folks expected them to do was to rely upon Jesus and His written Word for the authority we found there. As a result our preachers spoke boldly and powerfully.
Now, this isn’t JUST an issue with churches. Sometimes it’s an issue with individual Christians.Their “party line” is whatever popular preacher happens to be on TV or radio at the time. They don’t examine the Bible for themselves. Instead, they trust their favorite “Biblical authority” without question. But they never (or at least rarely) study their bible… and that’s dangerous! I don’t care who your favorite authority is, sooner or later that’s a recipe for disaster.
By contrast, God commended a group of people in the book of Acts who refused to accept Paul’s preaching on face value. We’re told “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and EXAMINED THE SCRIPTURES every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11
You see, God said these folks were NOBLE because their authority was THE BIBLE!
ILLUS: Alex Trebek has been the host of the game show Jeopardy for years, and occasionally they let the studio audience ask questions about how things were handled behind the scenes. Apparently one the most frequently asked question he’s received was this: “How many of the answers do you know?” And Trebek replied: “All of them, because I have them in front of me.”
That’s the advantage we have when we take Jesus at his word and trust the Scriptures… which are His written instructions for us. We have all the answers right in front of us in the Bible. If you say you believe in Jesus but you don’t trust the Bible… you’re fooling yourself. Because the only source of information we have about who Jesus is and what His will is for us is right there in this book! We don’t have any other information other than Scripture.
Now, one last thing. I only told you a portion of the motto I mentioned earlier. That last motto I talked about started out: “No Creed But Christ, No Book But The Bible…” but the rest of it said “No Law But Love.”
You see, if we belong to Jesus we’ll obey His commands - and THE most powerful command Jesus gave us was “Love one another.” Jesus said “My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12
So we are supposed to love one another. But some folks might be inclined to say “Well, that means the only people I have to love are the “one anothers” - the Christians. I don’t have to love anybody else….” I seriously had a man at the first church I served tell me precisely that. He didn’t have to love anyone who wasn’t a Christians.
Well, just in case you might be tempted to say that, call to mind the time a lawyer asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. And Jesus said “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR as yourself.’” Matthew 22:35-39
Well… who is your neighbor? Someone asked Jesus that exact question “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29), and so Jesus told them a parable – the parable of the Good Samaritan. A man had been on his way to Jericho when he’d been set upon by robbers who beat him up, robbed him, and left him for dead. Highly religious Jewish folk had seen the man by the side of the road and passed him by without offering help. But then a Samaritan – a man who was despised by all good and righteous Jews – stopped and took pity on him, bandaging up his wounds, taking him to an inn where he could be cared for, and paid for the man’s expenses. Then Jesus asked the questioner: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise." (Luke 10:36-37)
So, if you bear the NAME of Christ, you are commanded not only to love fellow Christians, but you are ALSO commanded to love your neighbor… who may (or may not be) a Christian. Thus Romans 13:10 commands us “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
ILLUS: I shared an observation on Facebook some time back. I noted that there are many otherwise decent people, on my "friend list" have convinced themselves that its worthwhile to hate on Democrats, Republicans, the President, the congress... etc. and share their spite on FaceBook. But (I wrote) for those of you who aren't Christians you can ignore this. BUT if you claim to be a Christian, you need to go back through your FB postings and ask yourself if you hate someone (or a group of someones) more than you love Jesus. Now, how can you know if that's happened to you (that your hate of others outweighs your love for Christ)? Well, count the times you shared your praise of Jesus and compare it to the number of times you've shared spiteful memes and posts about the politicians you despise. If your hate of others is greater than your love of Christ, then the numbers will reveal your heart. But actually... your hatred in even one post will betray that YOU (not the person you despise) has a problem. Be careful that you DO NOT DIS-honor the name of Christ by what you share on FB.
As James 3:9-10 tells us “With (our tongue) we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”
Now, here’s the deal. I’ve been as tempted to do this as the next person. There’s stuff that happens in this world and in the media that trips my trigger, and I find that I want to make my frustration and anger known to everyone who’ll listen. But as a man who bears the name of Christ - I can’t do that and neither should you. If you’re doing it… CUT IT OUT! QUIT IT!
Close: So, do you know who you belong to? We’ve got a name – we’ve got a name - and that name is the name of Jesus Christ. It’s HIM that we belong to. Not a political party, not even a nation. We MUST BE first and foremost CHRISTIANS ONLY!!!!!
Remember who’s name you bear. Jesus died for you and I and thus, Christ and His book (the Bible are our only valid authority, and we must people led by the idea that there is “no creed but Christ, no book but the Bible and no Law but Love.”
Invitation
