Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood
Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.
Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast.
You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word
about important issues facing your life that can guide you
according to the Bible. Well, welcome tonight to this
session. Those of you who are listening
online to this podcast, we're so thankful that you're joining us.
And those of you who are here live with us as always, thank
you for being here. I'm always kind of amazed that
anybody shows up. And so I'm always thankful that
you do. And we're, we've been having a
good time, been interesting studies.
Let me tell you what's coming up tonight.
I've got to do when I say a transitional point here that'll
make sense in a minute. We've been talking about some of
the primary doctrines we must believe in in order to be a
Christian, in order to actually be able to call yourself that,
in order to be saved. If you've missed some of those
episodes, go back, listen to those.
They're crucial. And there's two reasons for all
of this. One is, is obviously I want you
to know why you believe what you believe.
But also from an apologetic standpoint, as we're dealing
with a post postmodern pre Christian culture, how do we
actually address people who don't necessarily have that same
foundation, that same perspective?
So that's why over the last couple of weeks I've shared what
do we really believe about the Bible?
Why does that matter? We need to understand our
authority and what and how can I articulate what I really believe
about this book? If you missed that one, go back.
And then I've also talked about what do we believe about Jesus
and why does that matter? And so if we, if we can
articulate at least in those two zones, we're going to have a
hard time sharing the gospel with people.
So go back and do that tonight. I'm going to move into some more
secondary and tertiary conversation.
So let me tell you what's going to come up like next week.
Next week I'm going to talk about the perplexity of
eschatology. So if you those of you who want
to talk about the second coming, I was told that if I wanted 500
people to show up here on Wednesday night to talk about
the second coming. And so that's coming up next,
next Wednesday. So we'll see what happens.
And then after that, I'm going to talk about the problem of
evil and why evil exists. That probably is a primary, but
schedule wise, that's when we're going to do it.
And so why, why do bad things happen?
Why did that person get healed and that person die?
We're going to talk about all those kinds of issues and why
that exists in our world today. And then in a few weeks, the
week after that, I'm going to talk about spiritual gifts and,
and do they all still exist today?
Are they still active today or not?
We're going to talk about some of those issues because those
are some of the issues that will divide us in not only
denominationally at times, but even within a congregation.
So that's part of what we're going to be doing.
So that's just kind of down the road so that you can be looking
ahead also. I encourage you if you're, if
you're interested in this, I've been getting some feedback on
it. It was kind of just a fun thing
to do that Mike Stock said we should do.
But we've been enjoying the idea of, of we're, we're recording
podcasts to accompany you when you're out walking or in your
daily quiet time. So we have a walking and prayer
podcast. It's been a lot of fun.
We've recorded several new episodes for that, everything
from a general, I'm out walking the dog around the neighborhood
and just guiding you through prayer as you're walking for
about 30 minutes. Or you could do that while
you're sitting at home reading your Bible.
But then we've also done them in the area of worship.
I've done them in the air of how do I pray for lost people?
How do we pray for wandering Christians and active Christian
people? We're getting ready to do one on
how to pray for sick people. How do we pray for those that we
know that are ill and then we're going to be doing 1.
How do I pray the word? How do I pray scripture into
people's lives and that kind of stuff?
So they're, they're going to be about eight of those.
If you haven't tuned into those, they're on the our podcast as
well. So you'll enjoy that.
So those who are listening to this, you may be listening to
those. And so as you get out and walk
Fido, pray, pray for your neighbors.
There you go. I have a former grader from the
seminary who now teaches at a university in South Carolina, a
Baptist school down there. And every day he drives a
certain road. And he sent me this photo.
He said that the only remaining covered bridge in South Carolina
exists on his road, and he drives by it every day.
And there's a sign by this oldest covered bridge in South
Carolina, and it says this. It says the man built the bridge
according to the lay of the land.
And it is neither plum nor square.
And so when you, when you look at it, you can tell.
And I think of that and I say that's, that's some people's
theology. You know, that's some people's
belief system. It's based more on the lay of
the land than it is on some objective truth and standard,
right? And so and so often it
fluctuates with the current topography of the culture or the
current topography of their context instead of the objective
standards of God's word and God's truth.
So it's neither plum nor square. And so I've been addressed well,
what this church believes as well as what we need to believe
as as Christians. But theological mosaics, I don't
want that phrase to throw you. Does that.
Just think about what are those two words for a minute.
The the idea of a mosaic, you know, the art piece made out of
broken fragments of something glued together to make some kind
of image or pattern. Theological mosaics exist in
church life and sometimes within the same congregation to where
this person believes this interpretation of something,
this person believes that interpretation of the same
thing. And there are levels of this
that will either separate us or give us lively discussion in our
small groups, right? And so this is when we begin to
talk about secondaries and tertiary issues in theology,
when we talk about theological triage that we've been talking
about over the last several weeks, to talk about how do I
prioritize, I have to believe, we all must believe this.
We in order for us to be Christians, in order for us to
be Orthodox. But there are some places where
we can vary a little bit and some topics where we can vary a
little bit, and sometimes that even gets more interesting.
That's often where the conflicts occur as well.
And so this is what often defines the very identity of a
specific congregation. This church happens to be
Southern Baptist, and so they're going to be some Southern
Baptist distinctives about Inglewood as compared to a
church from another denomination.
But it can also separate individuals within a Southern
Baptist church like this one, right?
And so how do we do this? So primary issues determine
salvation and how do we to heaven?
Just think of it that way. They determine salvation.
How do you get to heaven? Secondary issues are often
described as they determine identity and where you go to
church. And then tertiary issues often
identify specific personal interpretations of belief and
what we'd like to argue about within a church.
All right. And so, and yet sometimes I find
that there are congregations that are very unified in their
belief about some secondary and tertiary doctrines.
And then sometimes because of that, they actually kind of
raise them up to a higher level than then sometimes they should
perhaps. And we'll talk more about that
in a minute. I've quoted a couple of people
often in this series and I owe a debt to some of the writings
that they've done. One of them is a former boss of
mine, Al Mohler, Doctor Mohler from Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Louisville and and he defines
these categories again for us. He says it is the set of 2nd
order doctrines is distinguished from the 1st order set by the
fact that believing Christians may disagree on the 2nd order
issues. Though this disagreement will
create significant boundaries between believers when
Christians organize themselves into congregations and
denominational forms. Though this is his language,
they can stand together on the 1st order doctrines and
recognize each other as authentic Christians while
understanding that the existence of the 2nd order disagreements
prevent the closeness of fellowship we would otherwise
enjoy. So 2nd order issues resist easy
settlement by those who would prefer an either or approach.
And many of the most heated disagreements among serious
believers takes place on this second order level.
For these issues frame our understanding of the church and
it's ordering by the word of God.
And I've seen this time and time and time and time and time again
in the hundreds of churches I've worked with and the thousands of
church leaders I've worked with around the world.
So, so I see these second order things often defining
denominations. And I've mentioned to you in a
previous time together that that there are people who don't think
we should have any denominations and we should all be one united
body of Christ. And one day we will be the our
existence on this planet. It's a bit naive to not think
that there are different opinions on interpretation.
There are reasons for many of our denominations.
And if we begin to break down the difference between this one
and this one, you would say, well, that's wrong and that's
right, which is exactly why these disagreements occur.
And so there are reasons for their existence.
And so and some of those reasons really are significant.
But as you can imagine, some people, and this is a key point
for tonight will raise a second level issue to a what first
level. That's right.
And so it becomes a test of whether or not you're saved or
not. If you don't believe what I
believe about this, you're not a Christian, you're not saved.
And you can imagine the conflict that obviously that kind of that
kind of confusion or disagreement can cause, right?
And so and so they flame. Are they fan this flame of
disagreement and conflict. Gavin Ortlin writes this.
He says in both war and theology, there are battles to
avoid. Most of the battles you could
fight, you shouldn't. The majority of doctrinal fights
Christians have today tend to be over third rank issues or
fourth. He has a different ranking
system. So it would be second and third
for us. We deeply need to cultivate
greater doctrinal forbearance, composure, and resilience.
If courage and conviction should be our attitude toward first
level doctrines, then wisdom and balance should be how we
approach secondary level doctrines, and circumspection
and restraint should mark the third level.
These middle body of doctrines make a noticeable difference in
how we understand and articulate the gospel, though their denial
does not generally constitute a denial of the gospel.
They are not essential to the gospel, but they are often
important enough to justify divisions at the level of
denomination, church, or ministry.
They exert a significant influence over our witness to
and and or and or our understanding of the gospel.
They also lead to practical differences in how we do church
and or ministry, such that attempted formal unity amid our
different convictions will often lead to divisiveness, confusion,
and violations of conscience. Christians will divide over
these issues in certain contexts.
This is a complex conversation, and it is over the years I've
been involved in many a conversation on these levels,
obviously even within a single congregation.
I was recently a an intentional interim.
As some of you know, I've did that for years at a church, and
one of the primary assessment issues of that church was the
theological mosaic that existed in their leadership body as well
as their congregation to the point if it was causing division
and divisiveness over some key issues, including spiritual
gifts. And so one of the reasons we're
going to talk about that is because of some of these
experiences. So as you can imagine, I've
witnessed this over and over again to the point of leaving
it. People leave the church, people
cause division, people even question the salvation, our
fellow church members or pastors or deacons or our fellow staff
members or fellow elders. I'm trying to think if I
anything, well, who have I left out because I've seen all of
that and more. I'm not really sure my fellow
elders are even saved. That's a, that's a quote UN
quote. I'm not sure our senior pastor
is actually a Christian quote UN quote, those kinds of things.
And so one more theologian and we'll get in the word.
It says so, So because we've got to ask the question, because
there can be roots, if you think about this, there can be roots
both of legalism, but also liberalism in these arguments.
That makes sense. And you say that again, you
could have legalism, but you could also have liberalism
depending upon where you're landing in these categories.
And so there's a, there's a balance in there that must that
must be reached. So how and why would fellow
Christians reach such different conclusions?
How can you look at a single passage of Scripture and reach
totally different interpretations?
How can you look at a certain doctrine and reach totally
different conclusions over what it says?
Well, theologian Ryan Putman, he, he gives us a couple of
reasons. He says we disagree on secondary
and tertiary issues for a number of reasons.
Sometimes we read imperfectly. We're just not reading the
Scripture correctly where we we're not understanding what it
actually says. He also says we read
differently, we reason differently, we feel
differently, and we have different biases that we've
brought to the reading in the 1st place.
And so we're going to talk a little more about hermeneutics
and some of that down the road. Sorry for the big words, but
everything from our hermeneutical process.
In other words, how do I actually interpret scripture to
to our emotions and to our traditions play a role.
Some people believe what they believe because that's the only
thing they've ever been taught. And they don't even know that
there are any options because their whole life they've been
taught a certain interpretation and they have no idea that there
are even any others that exist out there.
And so part of what we're going to do.
And so y'all sitting down. So when we get to eschatology
next week, I'm going to share with you at least four different
ways to view eschatology. I know for most of you there's
only one way because you've told me, I promise.
I know, but they're actually more than one way to look at the
second coming. And we're going to talk through
all that a little bit next time together.
So is that going to get me 500? We're going to No, all right,
here we go. But you got to recognize this
isn't a new thing at all. Jesus dealt with this look in
Mark Chapter 7, Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees and the
scribes and and he he he asked them or they asked him, why do
your disciples not walk according to the tradition of
the elders, but eat with defiled hands and he said them well did
Isaiah prophecy of you hypocrites.
It's not like Jesus pulling punches as it is written.
This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far
from me in vain do they worship me teaching as doctrines the
commandments of men. You get that last part, teaching
his doctrines, the commandments of men.
You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of
men. And he said to them, you have a
fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to
establish your tradition. And, and, and I'm in places
where where churches have rules and regulations that aren't
found in the Bible, but there's a lot of oral tradition.
Some churches have ghosts and some churches have oral
traditions that they pass on year after year, generation
after generation. So personal biases, traditions,
the only way you've ever heard something explained, reactions.
This is another big one. Reactions against something in
the past you didn't like or when somebody hurts you in the
church. So whatever they believed,
you're not going to. There are a lot of reasons why
we interpret. Even context and culture have an
impact on belief. And I'll talk more about that in
a minute. DA Carson, you might know that
name. Theologian DA Carson once said
this. He said certainly when the
Apostle Paul finds himself in different cultural settings, he
feels free to emphasize slightly different things as he takes his
audience into account. I mean, you can compare his
sermons in Acts chapter 13 and Acts chapter 17 and you'll see
this in one he's preaching in a synagogue and another, he's
preaching to a very Greek audience on Mars Hill.
So you'll see very different in the in the in the approach, in
the methodology, in the context of what he's saying.
So culture and context can affect secondary and tertiary
issues. For example, as many of you
know, I've done a lot of work in sub-Saharan Africa.
We've in my previous life and part of my current life still,
we've trained a lot of, a lot of leaders in master's degrees and
whatnot in, in sub-Saharan Africa.
So I, we, we, we, we've been Theresa and I've been to Uganda
I don't know how many times and things like that.
We're working with the Baptist seminary there.
And in fact, the librarian son's name is Ewart, his first name is
Ewart. He is little Ewart and I am Big
Ewart. And I just feel sorry for the
poor African kid running around with E Ward Ewart, Ewart.
I'm also assuming I'm paying for college one day, but that's
another subject matter. But for example, in class we
would have, these are leaders. These would be leaders of
Baptist conventions, professors at Baptist seminaries, that kind
of group in one class together. So it's a, it's a, it's an
invitation only, leadership development kind of program.
And we would be talking through some of the issues that were
specific to the African culture. And I saw this first hand in
their homes when they invite me into, for example, they deal
with polygamy. Polygamy is not a normal issue
for an Eastern North Carolina Baptist Church staff to deal
with. But in Africa, it would be a
common thing in their tribalism and in their tribal traditions.
Many of many of those tribes believe in polygamy.
And so the question here's these were honest questions we had to
discuss in class. Is it OK for someone who has
more than one wife to be a a Christian?
Can they be saved? That was a question.
Then could they be a Deacon? That was a question.
Could they be a pastor? That was another question.
And so they were working through it.
And these guys came from 5 different countries and multiple
tribal backgrounds. So you can imagine the
discussion that was going on, right?
And and they reached some conclusions.
You don't have to agree with this necessarily.
I'm not endorsing their conclusions necessarily, but
their conclusion was that you certainly be saved as a
polygamist. God can save people, anybody.
But they struggled with leadership roles for a
polygamist. But the question was is, well,
what do I do? Do I kick out all but one of my
wives and, you know, all but all but one wife's children because
every wife has children and there's wives.
So I do I divorce three of them and keep one.
I mean, it was an interesting conversation.
As you can imagine. I didn't have to do that this
week here. I'm thankful for that.
So if you're a polygamist, let me name some several churches
that you should go talk to, OK? But yeah, that wasn't one we had
to do. But but you can just imagine now
don't, don't shoot the messenger for I'm about I'll give you
another African example. Don't now you don't throw things
those of you online, It's the the the e-mail address is
charles.taylor@inglewoodbaptist.com. But but the other question we
got into, is it OK? I'm not just I'm not endorsing.
Is it OK for husbands to beat their wives?
Now you might think what a question.
Well, tribal tradition is very strict on some things.
I have been in African homes where when the the wife brings
out dinner, she brings it out on her knees.
She's on her knees holding up the meal for the men to eat
first. Again, I'm not endorsing.
I'm not suggesting this is not a prescription.
So men don't try that at home, but is it OK for a husband to
meet your wives? And I'm shocked when I'm hearing
this question. I'm like, well, of course not.
You know, I'm just sitting here. I'm, you know, I'm a redneck
from the Ozarks in Oklahoma. Of course, of course you don't
they they, they'll hit you back. You can't do that.
But but they said, but the Bible says we can.
And I'm like, where, what, what are you talking about?
Follow me. Ephesians 5.
And they say that that Christ loves the church as husbands
should love their wives as Christ loved the church, right?
And they're talking about how Christ chastens or disciplines
the church. So husbands, you're supposed to
discipline your wife. And I'm going time out.
Let's have a little hermeneutical lesson here, you
know. But it was a long standing
tradition and a lot of their tribes, even within
Christianity, it was something they brought over from pre
Christian tradition, but it leaked into kind of a
synchronistic type tradition. So you can see that culture and
context should, should matter. There are parts of the country
that I could take you to that I'm very familiar with where
it's King James only country. All the churches would be King
James only. And if you did anything but King
James, you are a heretic and a liberal.
I, I pastored in a town, my first senior pastor.
It was in a town where the First Baptist Church in town had gone
interestingly and a different direction and, and kind of I've
told you stories about having private secret meetings at night
with some of the community leaders for some who've been
here, but but where women couldn't wear pants, where the
only Bible you could bring to the campus was King James only.
And if the woman wanted to speak, they had to speak to
their husband or their Deacon. And I couldn't figure out why
any woman ever went to that church, but they but they were
there. But anyway, so there's
interesting stuff even in the United States.
I can't I, I'm telling you where we're from, snake handling and,
and, and different kinds of of fire walking or all kinds of
stuff could be a part of church tradition.
And so when Ed Joyner first came over to my house before we
moved, there was a black snake on the the back steps.
I reached out to I had a hold of the tail of 1 snake the other
day and he he calls me a snake handler ever since.
So we'll see. So if you have a snake you need
handled, you let me know and we'll do something.
But the point simply this ranking belief and then and even
reaching interpretive imperative conclusions.
Now you got to follow these words.
So in other words, I'm interpreting commands.
These are, these aren't things you can compromise.
These are, this is the way it has to be, right?
And interpreting these conclusions are parts of who we
are often who we have been and frankly where we are at times in
our context and culture, because there are many people who allow
the context and culture to determine truth and to determine
new interpretations. There are certainly
denominations in our country today.
I won't naming I don't have to that once believed that same sex
marriage was a sin and now same sex marriage is just fine.
And and so there are all kinds of things that change.
Culture changes things, times change things.
And so we we we need a better foundation than that right.
Wayne Grudem, who's very famous for writing a systematic
theological textbook, he says this a doctrine is what the
whole Bible teaches us today about some particular topic.
It's about as simple as you get, he goes.
Within each of these doctrinal categories, many more specific
teach list. So we're free to use our
reasoning abilities to draw deductions from any passage of
Scripture, as long as these deductions do not contradict the
clear teaching of some other passage of Scripture.
So in other words, the greatest commentary on the Bible is the
Bible. And so you have to be consistent
through the entire Word with your interpretive abilities.
And so over the next few weeks, we're going to give you some
specific examples and talk about that.
So we want to study and teach all of God's Word.
In fact, to go along with that walking in prayer podcast, we're
also going to be doing some podcasts, as I mentioned, on how
do you study your Bible? Well, how can you how can you
sit at home in the morning or whenever you study your word?
And just some questions to ask, how can I help guide you through
a passage of Scripture so that your personal Bible study is
enriched so that when you're engaging the Bible yourself.
Sure, we can do some of that, but but but what we need to
understand is that a study of interpretation or hermeneutics
and an application to help us engage the Bible in a way that
will be most meaningful. It's going to be incredibly
helpful. And the new sermon series that's
going to be coming in a couple of weeks where we talk about the
seven essentials of discipleship.
We're going to hit very heavily upon how do we engage the Bible
and what's the right way to do that?
But, but we recognize what the Great Commission in Matthew 28
commands us. He says in Matthew 2819, very
familiar passage, he says, go therefore and make disciples of
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the
Son of the Holy Spirit. But then there's this next part.
And often we don't talk about this next part as much.
We talk about going, we talk about making disciples.
And those are primary pieces of the passage, obviously.
And as a messiologist, obviously, you know, we'll hit
those, we'll make posters of those things.
But we, we can't neglect this next part.
And that is we have to teach them all right.
We don't just teach them some, we've got to teach them all that
he has commanded us. And, and that's a lifetime
journey, frankly, that's a lifetime of discipleship.
And we're going to talk about in our discipleship series how
we're not only being discipled, but how we're discipling others
as well. And so how can I do that?
And, and, and, and that's where our, a significant portion of
our power comes from as we're tapped into his word.
And then of course, his, his authority in, in verse 18 before
that, and then his presence here at the end of verse 20, where
he'll be with us always. But, but this idea that the,
the, there's a command to teach them all these things.
So, so we teach all because we want to know everything God has
told us. We want to know everything God
has revealed to us. And again, that's a never ending
journey. Some of you have been alive
longer than I have. Not a whole lot of you, but some
of you. And, and like me, perhaps you've
read this entire book multiple times and, and I still read it
every every day. And, and yet I still glean
something every day. So this is a lifetime of
learning. Every morning in our office.
We start with the devotion and prayer time with all the staff
and I often will just share a passage from my quiet time and
what God kind of showed me. I journal not and I've mentioned
this to you before, but I keep sharing that with you to
encourage you to develop the some kind of habit to help you.
And so there's nothing spectacular at all that I write
in my journal. They're not nothing, nothing
we're ever seeing, but it just is a good it's a good discipline
for me. But the point being that I want
something fresh for the staff out of the word, right?
Psalm 119, verse 160. Listen to this.
He says the sum of your word is truth and every one of your
righteous rules endures forever. So the word we know the word is
eternal. We've, we've talked about those
kinds of issues before, but every single word, every single
part of this, but we need God's help and we need God's guidance
and careful study and teaching to help us in this because we
really do need to develop strong interpretive skills.
A solid hermeneutic of belief of, of theological triage, which
is that phrase that Moeller created to really do understand
that this is a primary doctrine. And, and I have no, I must
believe this or I'm not a Christian.
And then this is a secondary doctrine, which really is going
to create an identity for me as a believer.
I'm a blank. And that really is going to be
defined in that category. And then, and then those third
levels to where, well, I believe this, but, but Doug believes
that and, and you know, we're not necessarily on the same, but
it's OK because it's a third level thing.
And we, you know, none of us know for sure exactly how that's
going to pan out. And, and so it's OK for us to
fellowship together. And we can still of one another.
We'll poke at each other, we'll debate with each other.
And I know I'm right and he's wrong, but, you know, just like
being at home, he said. Doug, just don't beat your wife,
all right? So we base our salvation again
and our identity on these specific doctrines.
And so for us here we have that doctrine or that document I've
mentioned to you, I'm not going to read it to you, but I just
have mentioned to you to you many times because the Baptist
faith in message 2000, which, which to be honest with you, is
not a creed. It it was just a summary for
the, the I'll be honest with you.
The media didn't understand Southern Baptists and they said,
what do Southern Baptists believe in a document?
To kind of summarize, this is what most Southern Baptists
believe, but at times it's quite general, to be honest with you.
So I want us to revisit a passage.
We're going to spend most of our time in Ephesians 4.
So there was the introduction. I make balloon animals too.
You want to see that? Used to do St. clowning in
Manila. That's a whole nother story.
There's a photo somewhere that we don't want to see.
Yeah, I used to build a juggle. But anyway, so I want to revisit
a passage I've mentioned in some of the recent times together and
it's context for a moment and it's going to help us as we dive
into some of these secondary and tertiary identifiers.
So I want you to think about ways in which you ought to live
out your theology. So we're talking application for
a few minutes. How do I actually live out what
I believe? Because believing something,
knowledge alone is incredibly incomplete, right?
You with me on that. There's got to be more than
that. There's got to be fruit.
There's got to be action. Something's got to come out of
it. You can sit in every single
study. You can come every Wednesday
night, you can listen to every podcast.
That's not necessarily going to make you a disciple.
There's more to it than that. It's holistic.
So when we start talking about discipleship, we're going to
talk about being, we're going to talk about knowing, we're going
to talk about doing in these discipleship messages.
But, but I want you to think about ways you're living at your
theology. And So what, what should your
attitudes be toward God and toward one another?
Even if you disagree, even if you disagree on a secondary or
tertiary issue, how should you still treat one another?
Because I've been in, I've been in theology wars, I've been in
churches that were in massive conflict and, and sometimes they
actually were theological conflicts.
So in Ephesians 4, how should we display our beliefs to the lost
world? How should we walk and work
together within our doctrinal identity as well as cooperation?
So Ephesians 41I therefore a prisoner for the Lord urge you
to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have
been called. Now here are some
characteristics that ought to describe that walk.
We are to walk with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There's one body and one spirit, just as you recalled to the one
hope that belongs to your call, 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in
all. And so Paul's writing to this
church hoping, you know, he's had a he's had a lot to do with
their leadership at Ephesus. And he's hoping that the church
members will remember and be eager to strive for unity in the
church. You got to recognize that these
people were coming from a massive diverse background.
They're coming from all over the place.
A lot of Pagan is in, in Ephesus, paganism in Ephesus.
So you people coming from all kinds of traditions, all kinds
of other belief systems. And it would be very easy to
carry that into the church and cause division.
And so we can agree to get along because we always agree, but not
because we always agree, but because we are surrendered to
Christ. And that's his point here, that
the way you maintain unity isn't just because you, you agree with
one another, it's because you agree with Jesus.
And so Jesus provides us this unity.
And, and that needs to be more important than your secondary's,
if that makes sense. Your, your love for the
primaries, your love for Christ is more important than your
secondary beliefs. And whether or not it's OK for
me to RIP the head off of somebody who doesn't agree with
my secondary or tertiary beliefs, right?
Not that that would ever happen at Inglewood, verse 7.
But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure
of Christ's gifts. And so he's talking about roles
and giftedness within the church now.
So go all the way to verse 11. And he gave the apostles, the
prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip
the Saints for the work of ministry, for building up the
body of Christ until we all attain.
Here's this idea again, to the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God. So there's a unity in what we
believe. There's a unity in our
understanding of Christ to mature manhood to the measure of
the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer
be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by
every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and
deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in
love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head
into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together
by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is
working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up
in love. And so we we have this idea of
the fact that we're united in our walk because of what Jesus
has brought our unity of Christ. And in Christ we can serve
together according to the way God has designed us so that we
might all work together. Like, even though we may come
from different perspectives, we may have different beliefs about
things, but we build up the church not to criticize or to
tear down, but to edify, especially in the secondary and
tertiary issues. And you've got to understand
that they they were not only plagued from their backgrounds
as as in Pagan worship and things that surrounded them at
Ephesus, huge temples, etcetera, but they also would have been
attacked by false teachers. So there was, you know, much of
the New Testament letters are written in order to counteract
false teachers and false teaching that was that would
taking place in their culture. And so to recognize that this
was a this was an apologetic defense mechanism as well as a
unifier. So you don't bring it in.
Don't let them bring it in. And let's focus upon the
primaries so that we can be united together.
Verse 17 then goes on. Now this I say in testifying the
Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the
futility of their minds. They are darkened in their
understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the
ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.
They have become callous and have given themselves up to
sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
But that is not the way you learn Christ, assuming that you
have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is
in Jesus. To put off your old self, which
belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through
deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your
minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of
God in true righteousness and holiness.
And so one bottom line here is we're to be different than the
blind, lost, Dark World. There's a spiritual blindness
out there. There's a spiritual hardness of
heart. Don't be surprised when people
don't agree with you. Don't be surprised when they
don't understand or believe in the authority of the Bible.
They don't believe that Jesus was either real or that he
really was God Incarnate. Don't be surprised when you try
to share with somebody. And remember, later this year,
I'm going to hit us pretty heavily with some personal
evangelism training. Don't, don't be surprised when
people out there don't understand that, which is why we
have to talk about how do we share the gospel in this culture
today? Where as I say about every
single week, I feel like we're probably not going to start in
Romans. We're probably not going to
start in John, We're probably going to start in Genesis to to
explain who is this God, right? And what do I believe about God
and sin? And how would I even define that
in conversations out there? Because their, their hearts are
hard, their minds are foggy. And then then you see this, and
I've shared this with you before, this replacement idea
that when I shared out of Colossians 3 at some point with
you, we talked about this pretty heavily, that that true
repentance, true transformation requires replacement.
And so again, let me just make sure for those who never saw
this, that when, when, when repentance takes place,
confession and repentance, it's not just that I've been sinning,
I've been doing something I should and I feel bad about it.
The Holy Spirit convicts me and I feel bad.
That's not enough. It's not just I, I've been
sinning, walking away from God, The Holy Spirit convicts me.
I feel bad about it. And I do this about face and now
I face God, which is kind of what the word can mean.
But there's a lot more to it in Scripture and you'll see it
right here. You see, the real way this has
to work is, is I'm convicted in my sin as I'm walking away from
God. I, I, I turn to God and I
confess to him. I say the same things about my
sin that he believes about my sin, which is what the word
confess means. But then I put on, I replace the
old ways by putting on the spiritual disciplines, the
spiritual discipleship. That fills my life with him.
If I don't do that last step, very likely I will fall back,
which is what Paul dealt with all the time.
He dealt with it in Ephesus. He dealt with it in colossi.
These people who came from these backgrounds would often turn
back to those backgrounds and and walk away.
And So what we've got to understand is, is in order for
me to continue walking with God, for me to really understand what
I believe, in order for me to articulate that to a lost world,
I've got to fill my life. I've got to put on the new self
created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and
holiness after I've taken off the old ways.
And this image of clothing being taken off and putting on is
clear. So we're to be different.
But the question is, is are we? Or do we still walk in the old
ways while we claim to be new? But are we really?
Look at verse 25. Therefore, having put away
falsehood, that each one of you speak the truth with his
neighbor, for we are members one of another.
Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on
your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.
Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing
honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to
share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out
of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up as fits
the occasion, that it may. Give grace to those who hear,
and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were
sealed for the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be
put away from you, along with all malice.
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another as God in Christ forgave you.
So even though we're not a perfect people and this is not a
perfect church because there is none, I've been in every one of
them. No, not quite, but been a lot.
And there are there. There ain't one of those as we
would say back home and I would still say at my home.
But we should and we must be on some pathway of maturity and
growth and love, including our belief system.
We, we need to mature in our understanding of what we believe
and why. So, so we do we chip away at
each other or do we build one another up?
That's part of the issue here. Will we get angry yet?
We can do that without sin. We might offend one another, but
we can also forgive one another. So even when we have
disagreements about belief, because you might next week, you
need to remember this passage, see and and recognize where we
are because we need to remember we're saved people changed
people, different people. We, we have not because of
something we muster up by our own strength.
That's not how this works at all, is it?
It's because of what God has done.
We're we're one Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one God and Father
of all who is over all and through all and in all.
So, so we recognize that we can love, we can be kind, we can be
forgiving because that's how, how God is to each of us.
And that's what our, our, our, our desire is.
So, so Paul had had pretty simple hopes for the church.
I feel like Paul can be complex, but he didn't have to be.
He wanted to build up the church.
He wanted to lead the church to maturity and faith.
He wanted to equip the church to do ministry.
He wanted to lead the Church to love and unity.
He wanted to show the lost world this mature, faithful unity,
love and truth. And if we would do that, if we
would live that out and we would focus on the primaries and learn
to discuss honestly and lovingly with one another the secondaries
and tertiaries, not only would our lives be changed and the
Church be changed, but the world would be impacted.
But one pastor shared this. Listen to this.
This is just an honest testimony from a pastor.
He said. I thought my job would focus on
getting my church members to encourage one another to do what
the Bible commands. Instead, most of my job is
keeping my church members from demanding things of each other.
The Bible never does. So there are a lot of traditions
out there, right? And we get attached to things
for different reasons. I once was doing a, a, a
consultation work with a, a large church in North Carolina.
So that will remain nameless as the city will too, because you
would know this church and they had a, a new pastor.
And in fact, Chuck Lawless and I were working together on this
one. You know, some of, you know,
Doctor Lawless and, and we were doing interviews.
We did member interviews a lot. And I've done, I've done a lot
of these over the years. And a lady came in and she had a
scroll. I mean, it was a scroll.
She unrolled a scroll. You understand a scroll.
I don't normally get scrolls. You understand what I'm saying?
I get notepads, I get iPads, I get phones.
But she had AI mean it might as well have been papyrus.
And it was long. I mean, it just kept unrolling.
And she goes, I'm here to air the grievances of my Sunday
school class. I looked for chuckle all this.
He was in another room. I said, well, that's not really
why I'm here, but go for it. Knock yourself out.
And friends, I've told you a lot of stories.
I think I've told you the story about the time that the minister
of of music was jumping over the table to to attack the pastor
and I caught him in midair and did a body slam.
So I've been, I've been in some places, seen a few things, but
this might have been the most angry, venomous human being I've
ever been around in my life. And I've fought in tough man
competitions in my previous existence.
I've been a bouncer in my previous existence.
But this might have been the meanest, maddest human being
I've ever been around my entire life.
I thought she was going to have a stroke she was so angry.
Spitting out the list of you know what, this new pastor dot
dot dot see? So I'm thinking, man, this guy
must have, you know, must have taken a bat and beat up her
grandma or something. I mean, this must be really bad.
I mean, I don't know what this guy's done.
I mean, I knew the guy, but I'm like, what is it?
I mean, what? Who did he attack?
What did he say? Who did he condemn?
You know what he did? Now, don't get mad at me.
I'm just the messenger, right? He moved the pulpit and the
Lord's Supper table. Don't you know what those things
meant to this church now that everything had a bronze plaque
on it? Because this church has been
around for a while. And, and he went in, There's the
new pastor. And one day the Lord's Supper
table and the pulpit were there. The next day the Lord's Supper
table and the pulpit were not there.
And there was a cool little acrylic pulpit thingy up there
because, you know, you got to untuck your shirt and be cool.
And so I said I was waiting for point #2 you know, but, but, but
don't you know who gave those to the church?
Don't you know who they represented?
Now, see, for her it wasn't furniture, was it?
It was relationships, people who had died, people who had helped
build the church, so to speak, and had dedicated that
furniture. And I can't stand that man.
I can't even stand to be in that room.
I can't even worship my God anymore because of that man.
Now think about that sentence. I wish I could tell you that was
the only time I've heard stuff like that, but it's not.
It's interesting what becomes primary now.
Do I think it was a wise move for the brand new pastor to go
messing around with the furniture without communicating
something about that in a church that has that kind of tradition?
We can we can go down that conversation, discussion, point
of wisdom, right? But I also wonder, so you can't
worship God anymore because furniture got moved.
Now I know it's more than that to him.
I get it. It's it's about the people that
it was about who she loved. And they're not, they're being
disrespected. They're being dishonored.
I get, I get the story. But I see that in church life a
lot to where suddenly something becomes the trigger point.
Why did you leave? Well, and I hear that story
after story after story. You know, the most common person
I've met in Rocky Mountain, a former member of Inglewood,
Teresa will tell you every I go to, every store I've ever been,
100%, every restaurant we've ever gone to, every store I've
ever been in. Over these months, somebody will
walk up to me and say, you're the pastor at Englewood, aren't
you? And I'll go, yeah, well, I'm a
former member of Englewood. Now we're first of all, I think
it's weird that you feel the need to tell me that, you know,
I mean, good, glad to meet you. Sorry, I wouldn't hear.
Not my fault. And what happened, you know, I
never know where to go. And so, but it's it's an amazing
conversation. And then they'll tell me why,
you know, sometimes they're real reasons.
Sometimes they're just mad about furniture getting moved.
So let's focus a little bit. Remember the old saying, I won't
read it in Latin, but in essentials unity in non
essentials, liberty in all things.
What charity? Yeah, attributed to Augustine or
Augustine, Not sure if he really said it because a lot of things
get attributed to him. But, but this whole idea, if we
really need to balance out our, our strong belief, what's a
priority, especially again, remember, this whole series is
based on the fact that within a 10 mile radius of where you are
right now, 74% of the people are absolutely unchurched.
And when I say unchurched, they're not just unchurched
Christian. They're not going to a mosque,
they're not going to a temple, they're not going to a
synagogue, they're not going to a church, they're not going to
anything. 74% of the people who live in a 10 mile radius of
where you sit right now are totally unengaged in religion.
And so we, we don't have the privilege, we don't have the
luxury of being Pharisees who want to debate the law.
We don't get to debate the jots and titles.
We're in a different emergency room situation in our triage.
We have people bleeding to death and they're dying.
And so we have to figure out how to get them the primaries.
At the same time, we want to learn the secondaries.
We want to study the whole word of God.
We want to know the tertiaries and we can discuss them, but we
need to be able to agree on our primary tasks and missions.
So let me go back for just a moment and and remind you of a
list from the about 5 or 6 theological textbooks that I I
summarized for you. So these are doctrines that
would be chapters in some of these textbooks.
You have the word of God or Revelation.
So we talked about that couple weeks ago.
You have the doctrine of God, the doctrine of creation, the
doctrine of man or humanity, the doctrine of sin, the doctrine of
Christ, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the
Trinity, the doctrine of salvation, the doctrine of the
church, and the doctrine of last things.
Now there are other subcategories for every one of
these and, and any one of these could be considered some aspect
of it, a primary doctrine. But there are often there are
subsets and there's specific teachings and there's specific
interpretations of almost every one of these to where you could
branch out and say that, you know, here, here are some things
that might be considered secondary and tertiary.
So let me list just a few secondary or tertiary doctrines.
Some of you will say, no, no, that's not it.
Wait a minute, that's primary and it doesn't even you know,
and etcetera. And so just hush.
So just easy, just listen for a minute, you know, just tell me
at Lowe's later that you're a former member of Inglewood and
it all makes sense. So so this list isn't is is not
exhaustive, it's only representative.
So this is not everything by the means but but there here's some
areas that would be perhaps secondary or tertiary.
The way the church should practice baptism in the Lord's
Supper can actually fall into these categories.
Now we believe strongly in immersion.
We believe strongly and I'm preaching on the Lord's Supper
this Sunday. And so as and so we, we believe
in and, and certain ordinances of the church and that they
should be done a certain way. We believe strongly in that.
In fact, you can't be a member here unless you've been baptized
by immersion. So it's just a big deal.
But does that keep you from going to heaven?
Now remember primaries, salvation, am I going to heaven?
This will be a secondary denomination which church I
believe I should be a part of right?
Views on predestination and election, although I know
exactly how all that works and can explain it to you in 15
seconds, Some people have strong opinions about it.
That was a joke by the way, although I've tried before.
Anyway, just remember lines, points, remember that some of
you don't worry about it. I mentioned earlier beliefs
about spiritual gifts and whether all the gifts are still
active today. There are there are words for
this continuationism, in other words, every, every sign gift.
And usually this is about the sign gifts, things like healing,
speaking in tongues and whatnot. And you have continuationism and
then you have cessationism to where certain gifts stopped at a
certain time in history and certain gifts continue.
And this can actually divide a congregation.
I've seen that happen to where the spiritual gift issue was the
division. So in a couple of weeks we're
going to talk about that views of eschatology.
I know there's only one way you're all going to tell me
afterwards. I get it.
Church leadership, organization and polity.
Should you have a a single elder pastor LED model?
Should you have a committee LED model?
Should you have a plurality of elders?
What should you have for some people, man, that that's going
to decide what church I go to. I'm only going to a church with
that kind of polity, with that kind of leadership structure,
with that kind of organization, and people pick their churches.
I'm not guessing. I know people pick their
churches sometimes solely on that.
So it becomes primary almost to them.
Views on divorce and remarriage. There are many different
interpretations and views of that.
You may not realize that, but there are even views of
creation. And I know that's getting real
close, but some, there are possible interpretations.
I'm not necessarily promoting them, I'm just saying that's
true. So the next couple weeks we got
to break down a few of these because they're going to help
define who Englewood is as Englewood who, What's the unique
identity of Englewood? Who are we here?
What do we believe and why? And that's part of the reason
for this series. The other part of the series, as
I said at the beginning, is to equip you to be able to
articulate your own belief when you're out there talking to
somebody who doesn't believe what you believe.
And so as I've often mentioned, the secret to apologetics is not
knowing exactly what they believe.
The secret to apologetics is absolutely knowing what you
believe. That's the key, because I can
never ever fully understand in our world today that's
pluralistic, universalistic and synchronistic what everybody out
there is going to believe. And so, but I better know what I
believe, right? And so again, we're going to
talk about some of this. And these conversations require
wisdom. They require love, which is why
I prepped you tonight with this introduction to them, with the
passage out of Ephesians. So I expect you to behave, be
loving, kind, patient, forgiving.
I know you are. This is Inglewood, you are
great. You are, you are nice.
And yet there's some folks who try to number everything.
They try to rank everything they do and they're always are those
and they, and frankly, there are people who can't stand any
ambiguity. It's got to be cut and dried.
They want a box and it's got to be in that box.
And if it's not in that box, then it's not right, it's wrong,
and we're not going to stand for it.
But be careful about your dividing lines and remain
focused upon the primary because we need to stay united in that
and our lost world and the unhealthy churches around us.
And there are many because I've worked with a lot of them in
North Carolina. They need us to focus and
continue to reach people. By the way, we're baptizing
again Sunday, and we're we're baptizing the Sunday after that
and like normal. So God's working.
Yeah, no, that's fine. So we praise him for that.
Let me read to you a part of an article here.
It's an interesting article from what's called real
RealClearPolitics. I'm not endorsing any website or
anybody. I just want to read this to you.
It's a statistical article. He says the United States has
has old and remains a very religious nation despite steep
declines in attendance at churches, synagogues and
mosques. By the way, I there there's a
staff that came out not too long ago.
Only 45% of Christians attend church in the United States of
America. Now, everybody who claims to be
a Christian, whatever that means, you know, you know that
that could be quite a spectrum, but only 45% of those claim to
be Christian will attend to church.
So it says a majority of Americans surveyed that 58.3%
identified as Christian in the United States, with 36.3 saying
they consider themselves Protestant, 22% Catholic.
Americans who said they belong to other religions or were non
believers, We're all on the low single digits. 3.2% said they're
Muslims, 2.9 were Mormon, 1.9% Jewish, 1.6 Buddhist.
Hindus accounted for about .5. Meanwhile, about 3.8 are
atheists and 3.7 are agnostic. So one point I want to make to
you, because this has always been true.
You know me, I, I work in statistics.
I've done this for years, part of my work and part of my job
and part of my writing. And so it's always interesting
to me how we think the whole world's becoming atheistic or
agnostic. And that's just not true in the
United States. The number of of atheists in the
United States has always been less than 5%.
It's not a very. So if you know a lot of them,
you just happen to know a lot of them, but they're they're really
are not that widespread. If you're in college, then you
might see a higher percentage on your campus, which is where some
of them, some of them who claim to be anyway and then later on
realize they're not etcetera. But even those who those
considering themselves members of religions far outnumbered non
believers. But listen to this.
Only then these were adults. So the 45% includes all ages,
but but only 30% of those surveyed regularly attend
worship services once a week. Now remember, this is all
religions. This isn't just Christianity.
So 30% attend some kind of service once a week, another 12%
once a month, 19% a few times a year, 11% said once a year, 29%
never attended any kind of formal worship service.
And so it's, it's always interesting how in the United
States of America, what you'll have when you talk about 74% of
these people around us who are not in church, it doesn't mean
that at one time they weren't many of these people would be
previously churched people. And so something happened either
in their heart or in their church life or something that
led them to become unchurched. Either the church failed them,
they failed the church, they failed Christ, something
happened in their life. And so many of these people are
people that we want to reach out to and get back, so to speak.
But the American Bible just released its 2025 State of the
Bible. It's an annual report.
They do often. He said it says nearly half of
American Christians, 45%, have not attended church in the past
six months. About 2/3 of American, and this
is just adults, 64% say they're Christian.
But of those, only 55% attend church.
But for Christians who do attend church, it's about 35% of
Americans. Higher church engagement led to
higher human flourishing, which is their wording.
In other words, their life is better.
So listen to this. People's lives improve when they
engage with their church, not just attending, but using their
gifts, developing relationships, and taking advantage of
opportunities to grow spiritually.
And so they go on to say our survey shows that church engaged
Christians have significantly less stress, less anxiety, less
loneliness, and more hope. For years now, we've seen the
same effects with Scripture engagement, but the church
provides a living environment where these factors can play
out. The pairing of the church and
the Bible is a powerful force, and we expect those who attend
weekly to be the most engaged at church.
But the striking detail here is the relatively small difference
between monthly attenders and those who attend maybe twice a
year. So some churches consider people
regular attenders if they show up once a month.
But here we see data to dispute that.
Whether you're you're talking about pastoral care, the use of
gift or growth opportunities, weekly attenders are more than
twice as likely to respond enthusiastically.
And so being a part of a community on a very regular
basis makes a huge difference. And so once a month really is no
different than twice a year in their study.
I'm not saying it's is as good, but I'm just saying
statistically. And so it's that weekly grind.
So you wonder why I harp on you so much every single week.
What percentage of participation am I after here and what do I
want you to be in? Thank you.
I might start crying. I want you in small groups.
Why? Because it's that community, a
fellowship and study together. That's the clue.
People come to church because of relationships often.
They stay in church because of relationships often.
And so it's that glue that holds it together.
And and I want to be high quality Bible studies or it's
kind of a mute point to even try to get you there.
We want it to be high quality Bible study, but we also want
you engaged in prayer and in ministry together.
Our reach strategy is coming this Sunday.
We're having huge training and we're going to show you how your
connect group can be far more than just a Bible study group.
It's going to be far more than that.
It's going to be life on life, discipleship and accountability
and ministry together. So be a part of that.
I know most of you here on on this session probably are.
I'm literally probably speaking to choir members, even though
they're in the back rehearsing and are not supposed to be in
here right now. You're supposed to listen to the
podcast. So you choir members who are
here and who are now listening to this or warrant and we're
listening to this podcast. Thank you for going to choir
practice. Anyway, so sometimes our beliefs
and our practices just don't match up right?
And so my prayer is that we act upon our faith and we live
according to God's truth. And we have to begin with these
primary mountains of faith. These are heels worth dying on,
which is what we've been talking about over the last several
weeks. Then study, come back and study
with me over the next few weeks and understand the heels and
mounds of identification. They're not unimportant, they're
significant doctrinal issues, but they're not about going to
heaven and salvation, but they are going to define you and your
life and your church and what you consider the Christian life.
So they're very important. So I and then get get together
with others in these in their small group so that you can
discuss things together even more.
But but remember, this is not some game of king of the hill.
So don't, don't come in here fighting over mole hills.
That's usually just a distraction.
And it normally just ends up getting somebody bruised and
dirty. And we don't want that.
This is about building up the church in unity.
This is about building up the church in love, graciousness,
forgiveness, and showing that and sharing that with a
massively unchurched community around us.
There are 10s of thousands of people who ought to be in this
room and they're not. And they're not going to come
unless we help them come. They're not just going to wander
in here on their own. We've got to reach out to them.
And so you be a part of that strategy with us.
Remember Ephesians 4 He says put on the new self created after
the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness and
be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another
as God in Christ forgave you. And so one of the things that
we're going to remember is both our heart and our attitude in
this, but we also are going to be searching out the truth of
God's word next week, as I mentioned, we'll be in
eschatology. We're going to talk about the
second coming. A primary issue is that it's
real. It's going to happen still
wrong. And so I bet it it is.
And we need to be ready. We need to occupy and work until
he comes. And so we're going to prepare
ourselves for that. You know, I remember when I was
when I was baptized, I was baptized with a a friend.
Remember, we grew up in the the capital of the Cherokee Nation
in Oklahoma. So my best friend growing up
Jaybird Buffalo meat and his his little brother Screechow.
They called him Ray, but he was Screechow Buffalo meat.
So Oahu, young Tiwiya. And so anyway, in this Cherokee
culture and we were actually baptized together.
Now just track with me for a second.
In fact, he pushed me to be baptized.
We were sitting in a church service today one day and he
goes, we need to go forward and be baptized.
And I looked at him. I said, you're crazy.
That wouldn't be cool. We were athlete kind of people
and that would just be embarrassing kind of nonsense.
So I wouldn't go and I made him not go that first week.
God let me live another week and the next week he kind of just
grabbed me and we were going. There wasn't a whole lot of
option. Jay was as big as I was or
bigger than we were going. So that night we got baptized,
which is not always my recommendation either.
We we actually do pre baptismal conversations and training here
before we baptize people. And there are people in the room
who can testify to that. And so not that we don't want
you to be baptized, but we certainly want you to understand
baptism, you know, etcetera. So anyway, we were baptized that
night. My mom and dad were living and
so they didn't like Baptist. But anyway, and I remember
getting baptized and it was very exciting.
I was very excited. Oh, it was great.
You know, I, you know, I felt like I could, I was ready to go
play ball that night. And, you know, those days I
could actually dunk a basketball and I was ready to really play
some ball. But anyway, we were really
excited. That's not the story.
The story is a few years later, Jay would come to me and tell me
that he didn't believe in God at all and considered himself an
atheist, even though in my early days after that, he was the guy
who pushed me to have a daily quiet time.
He's the guy that pushed me to read the Bible.
He's the guy that pushed me to be are you going to?
Because nobody in my family went to church, so I had to go to
church. Obama, are you going to be
there? Anybody you know?
You know, what do I need you to get you there?
You going to be in Sunday school or small group or whatever?
We didn't have cool names in those days.
And he and he pushed discipleship on me and he, He
pushed spiritual disciplines on me.
But then within just a matter of a couple years, he didn't
believe anything at all. And the last I ever heard from
him, he still didn't. He was an alcoholic and
miserable, divorced and didn't believe in a God.
This is more than a belief. This is the basis of life,
right? This is this is the anchor, this
is the glue. This is what's going to hold
your life together. How do I deal on that Help
series that we talk? How do I deal with anger?
How do I deal with anxiety? How do I deal with worry?
How do I deal with time? How do I deal with money?
How do I deal with work? How do I deal with all the stuff
we talked about in a former series that you can listen to?
How do I do any of that? The word of God, the Spirit of
God, the power of God in my life.
It's not simplistic, it's really complicated.
It's deep, it's intimate. And we're going to start here on
Sundays talking about what discipleship really means.
What does that really mean? Because I can stand up here all
day long and say be like Jesus, be like Jesus, be like.
But we got to know what that means.
So we're going to define discipleship very clearly.
This is what we mean by being a disciple at Inglewood.
Here's what it means to be a church member at Inglewood.
And our connect groups are going to get on board.
Our worship services tied together with that, Our
midweek's tied together with that.
Everything's connected to help you grow, but this is the the
anchor that will hold you together.
Don't ever, don't ever leave the primaries.
We can have lively discussion, we can poke at each other, we
can laugh together about the tertiaries, right?
But we got to hang with the primaries or we will indeed be
lost and blind and foggy and we'll never see clearly.
We need His help. Amen.
So let's pray together. Father, I thank you so much.
Just the fact that people come out and they sit so long to
listen and to learn. And Father, I thank you for that
hunger. I thank you for that desire in
their hearts, Father. Forgive me sometimes, Lord.
Well, maybe I don't share everything I wish I could.
But Lord, I pray that I've told him what you wanted me to
tonight. And I pray, Father, that you
will put into us a hunger, a panting, as the psalmist writes
that I would pant after that. I would thirst after that.
I would hunger after your truth and your presence in my life.
Father, You are saving people than our midst.
I've seen it with my own eyes. I've been there when it's
happened. And Father, I appreciate the
fact that your hand is on us and your blessing us, but Lord help
that to trickle down into my personal life to where every
day, every morning, every night, whatever, it works.
I'm in your word and I'm reading and I'm learning and I'm
digesting, but more than that, I'm applying.
This isn't just a study. This can't just be some
cognitive, intellectual experience.
It's got to be more holistic than that.
Father, you've got to touch us on the physical, emotional,
mental, relational and spiritual levels to our Father.
Every aspect, every dimension of our life is touched so that,
Father, we don't walk alone. We don't dare walk alone.
We know how stupid it is to walk alone, how dangerous it is to
walk alone. We're in a Dark World.
That's danger. We don't dare walk alone.
We're going to give the devil an opportune moment when we walk
alone. We got to walk together, We got
to walk together with you, with your word and with each other
and by the power of the Holy Spirit, who who empowers us and
fills us and guides us, Father protects US, warns us, convicts
us. Father, be our anchor, be our
rock, be our refuge. Father, I thank you for the
words of David. He knew the right words, Father,
and he sang them to you. And so, Father, I pray that
they'll become our words, that Father, we really do see you as
the light of our salvation. We really do see you as our hope
and that we are absolutely dependent.
Thank you, Father, for the privilege of just being here and
opening your word for a few minutes.
Bring us back Sunday to worship you.
Thank you so much for those who are listening online.
I really do truly appreciate those who've been working with
our children tonight, our students tonight who are in our
worship arts ministry tonight, who couldn't be here physically,
but Father, they're going to listen to this later.
Thank you all for serving. Thank you and for our guests and
for others who'll listen. For some who listen on the road,
for some who are listening in their cars, for some who are
listening as they walk, the Father, you just speak to them
and help us, Father, to be the church, the body, and the bride,
the Father you build. Thank you Father, for causing
that growth in Christ's name, Amen.
God bless you all. Thank you all so much.
Thank you so much for listening today.
And I also hope that you'll go to
ourwebsite@englewoodbaptist.com as well as our app and find many
other resources that will bless you and your families.
Thank you once again.