Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood
Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.
Thank you so much for tuning into 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. So I want to thank you all for
being here in this live session. For those of you who are
listening online to the podcast, thank you for joining us as
well. I hope that you'll listen to
this entire series. If you weren't here last week, I
introduced the idea of a theological triage that may
sound like a technical term. Don't let that throw you.
Tonight we'll have some things that are fairly deep but but
necessary as we continue to talk about some of the primaries of
our faith. Next Wednesday, that's better.
Next Wednesday I'm going to talk about a specific primary.
This, this next couple of weeks are going to be really
important. If you can't be here, you're
going to want to capture those somehow because next week I'm
going to talk about why do we believe what we believe about
the Bible and why does that matter?
And then another one the week after that is why do I believe?
Why do we believe about Jesus, what we believe, and why does
that matter? And those two issues are going
to be crucial as you're dealing apologetically with a lost
world. If you don't understand your
authority and you don't understand who Jesus Christ is,
you're not going to have the foundational elements to be able
to share the gospel well with anybody out there.
And so our world today will not necessarily come from that
perspective. They're going to come from
different authorities. And you need to know what you
believe about about yours. And so last week I actually
ended with several passages in rapid fire from Paul to Timothy
and also Titus, about avoiding silly myths, avoiding silly
opinions and gossip and rumors, and instead we trust in God's
truth. A person that I feel like I've
quoted more in Rocky Mount than I have ever anywhere in my
entire existence is Corey Tenboom.
And I don't really know why that is, but she once said never be
afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.
And and so all of our definition, all of our
destination, all of our direction has to come from a a
single place. And so God is at work at
Inglewood. I believe that with all my
heart. I think when you look around
that room, the room to even now for those of here live would
believe that. And so we don't want to, we
don't want to ever neglect that or stop celebrating that.
But they're also always areas in which to grow and mature as we
seek God to perform and to to make his bride even healthier
and ready for his mission. And so we need to believe in him
and his plan for us. So that last session I shared a
pretty firehose summary of ways to prioritize our beliefs and
there. And there's two reasons for
that. I mean, these are the 2 main
goals of this little series right now.
One is it's the best way for us to unite as a church so that
we're all on the same page. And that we can also understand
that sometimes the pages have different paragraphs, so to
speak, that will have some nuances that that might be
different from one another. And, and that can be OK as long
as the basics and the primaries are the same.
And so we want to make sure that we're united together in
ministry. But also we really do need to
understand some of these things to be able to share real truth
with a world that doesn't believe in real truth.
It doesn't believe in any absoluteness, so to speak.
And so we want to be ready to do that out there.
So if you weren't here last time, please go back and listen
to that. And I told you last time that I
was going to break down each level in some detail.
And that's what we're going to begin to do tonight.
So what we're going to talk about tonight are really some of
the primary issues. And we would call this hills
upon which to die. These are things we must
believe. These are things that are
crucial to our belief. And, and because we're in such a
truth crisis in our world and frankly theological brute
bleeding, so to speak, we need this triage and, and Rocky
Mountain needs this triage as well.
In fact, let me summarize to you an article that I was reading
some time ago and it was about, it's about the nuns.
Now, what I mean by that are not the NUNSS, not the sisters in
the habit, but the NONESS, the NO, those who are not connected
to any religious organization. This is the third largest
religious group in the United States of America, those who are
not religious. And that's the first time in
American history that that's been true.
It's interesting in the last, just the last few months, the
growth of that nun group has actually slowed down, which is
interesting. I give God credit for that
obviously. And the growth, the rapid growth
of the nuns, the non religious, the non affiliated with any
organized religion people. And that's not just
Christianity, that's any religion that the growth of this
group has actually slowed down. But they're still significantly
large. If you were to look around the
Rocky Mount area, they would be the third largest group here.
You would have Baptists and you would have Catholics and you
would have others. But then the nuns are always
going to be there, the 3rd. And that's been true across
North Carolina in many places. But it's interesting because
referring to those who are, who are in this realm, there are
people who are trying to kind of be on both sides of the fence.
And so there are some churches and I put that in quotation
marks that no longer identify with biblical Christianity, but
identify as spiritual but not religious quote UN quote and
spiritual, but not necessarily religious.
Although I'm I'm not really necessarily wanting to be
religious either necessary and some of the the negative
connotations of that, but but often that means that they're
all over the place. So these spiritual organizations
don't follow any definite doctrine and they allow their
members incredible flexibility. This is going to be hard for
some of you to relate to who have been in more traditional
search setting. For example, in Atlanta, if you
think there's a Bible Belt, go to Atlanta and you'll realize
there isn't 1 Atlanta. Atlanta is one of the most
diverse cities in the United States of America and also one
of one of the most lost. But in Atlanta, there's a
community that no longer considers itself a church and
identifies as a more fluid group.
I'm just going to read this article for a minute.
Their quote UN quote pastor said.
We are an ever evolving spiritual collective.
If you're a Christian, wonderful.
If you're a post Christian, wonderful.
So at at first sight, these this organization, it looks like a
church has music, it has teachings, although I don't know
what they're teaching. It has teachings and fellowship
to connect together, but they reject blind faith and they
allow their members to and I quote, believe in anything and
nothing simultaneously. Another one, another one of
these churches, quote UN quote churches has a pastor who used
to be an active Christian pastor preacher but struggled with his
faith. This is what he said.
Everything started to unravel for me rather quickly.
The challenge of still going up and preaching A sermon every
Sunday when on the inside I was doubting the legitimacy of the
whole thing. So they rebranded as a spiritual
community, right? The focus is less on beliefs and
dogma and more about the experience, the practical
spirituality. Still another one of these kinds
of organizations or churches claims it's bound by values, not
written texts or beliefs. Here's what they say.
Our motto is love. Period.
We determine what these wisdom texts are saying through the
lens of love, rather than determining what love means
through the lens of a wisdom text.
And many of the members of these communities have experienced one
form of religious trauma or another, so they no longer feel
like they belong in churches. And since the doctrines aren't
set in stone, there's still a lot of experimental parts.
And their leaders believe they're figuring it out and will
continue to do so for as long as possible.
But the bottom line is they believe in anything and nothing
simultaneously. That might sound convenient,
that might even sound charming, but it's not going to help you.
It's not going to provide you what you need in life, and it's
certainly not going to provide you what you need in eternity.
And it's not going to impact this world because it's not
going to deal with the truth. So what we're dealing with is
the balance that we started to talk about last time.
The balance between love without truth leads to heresy and
ambiguity. You're going to have pluralism,
you're going to have universalism because you can
believe anything and everything. But truth without love leads to
legalism and conflict. And Jesus even dealt with this.
So in Mark Chapter 7 we encounter Christ encountering
some religious leaders. It says this.
Now when the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes
who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his
disciples ate with hands that were defiled, That is unwashed.
For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash
their hands properly, according to the tradition of the elders.
And when they had come from the marketplace, they do not eat
unless they wash. And there are many other
traditions that they observe, such as washing of cups and pots
and copper vessels and dining couches.
And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your
disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but
eat with defiled hands? And he said to them, Well did
Isaiah prophecy of you hypocrites nothing like beating
around the Bush 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 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. That last, that last part is
pretty powerful Traditions, opinions and often even in
church, I'll hear, well, I believe that.
Well, I think that or I think the Bible says right and, and,
and certainly there's some room for that when we're talking
about some tertiary or secondary issues.
But in primary issues, we need to be pretty rock solid to to
believe in whatever you invent as truth can can, can lead us to
a rejection of God's truth in the end.
We've got to be careful. Then you can also judge others
based on your truth, if you're creating your own truth.
So suddenly we're attacking or gossiping or posting on social
media about whatever. And, and it's often just opinion
or tradition rather than truth. And so perhaps some of these
folks are more concerned about getting followers for themselves
than followers of Jesus. But Jesus then continues with
specific examples of the way they took the truth and they
twisted it, how they ignored it. Now you got to remember these
are supposed to be the religious holy people of the day and how
they were ignoring it and twisting it or finding loopholes
in order to justify their their own behaviors or traditions
instead of following God's word. Look at verse 10.
It says for Moses said honor your father and your mother and
whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.
But you say if a man tells his father or his mother, whatever
you have gained for me is Corbin that is given to God, then you
no longer permit him to do anything for his father or
mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition
that you have handed down and many such things you do.
I'd like to have heard more of them, but rather than following
the actual word and will of God, they created a workaround and
and then in the name and facade of hyper spiritualism, they
justify their sin. And believe it or not, that
happens all the time. It happens in the church where
somebody's opinion or tradition. If that keeps going, then it
becomes truth and then your truth is based upon something
that's not true and then it's going to lead you to another
untruth and you'll find yourself in a spiral, a progression of,
of declining truth if you don't, if you're not careful.
So I'll just be honest with you. I grow kind of weary of those
who claim that God told them to do or, or or to do this or to do
that and and to bring glory to God when God was not telling any
mature believer to do that and his Word doesn't mandate that.
And in the end the glory goes to them rather than to God.
And so there are people who will hyper spiritualize things that
are not of the word and will of God in the 1st place.
But Jesus wasn't finished yet, just getting started.
This was a problem. This was a pattern.
This was a belief system. Now here what I just said.
This was a belief system of these religious leaders.
This wasn't just one time act. This wasn't just kind of a
misunderstanding. This wasn't just some mistake
they were making. This was a belief system upon
which they were basing not only their lives, but also oppressing
the people around them with those traditions and forcing
them into it as well. And so this became not only not
only a one time deal for them, it was an entire pattern of
behavior. So he wanted them to understand
that belief in our hearts is far more important in determining
than some of the physical rituals that they were
practicing, etcetera. So this is what he says in verse
14. And he called the people to him
again and said, hear me all of you and understand there's
nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him.
But the things that come out of a person are what defile him.
And when he entered the house and left the people, his
disciples asked him about the parable.
And he said to them, Then are you also without understanding?
Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside
cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart, but his
stomach and his expelled? Thus he declared all foods
clean. And he said What comes out of a
person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the
heart of man becomes evil thoughts, sexual immorality,
theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit,
sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
All these evil things come from within and they defile a person.
Now, why am I telling you all this?
Because when, when we're surrounded by lostness, which we
are, and you might not think we are, because I recognize that I,
if I could throw a rock hard enough, I could probably hit
another Baptist Church from here.
But that doesn't mean anything. Don't let these buildings fool
you. Just because there is a St.
building on corners doesn't mean there's a healthy church on that
corner. And I'm not judging anybody, but
I, I actually know about the churches statistically and
demographically and qualitatively and
quantitatively. I've consulted with some of them
here and so I know what's going on in a lot of them.
And it's true, all across our nation, we are surrounded by
lostness and we are in an emergency triage mode to stop
the bleeding and we have to have prioritized treatment.
So as I promised, I need to share more about the first
level, our highest ranking doctrine, our primary
foundational beliefs. Because if not, then we'll see
this same spiral happening. And then it creeps into the
church and churches become more moderate, churches become more
liberal. Churches draw away from the Word
of God. And before long, God's not going
to bless them. They start declining in size.
They start calling me and asking me what to do about it.
And that's what happens in my life.
Theresa will testify to you that I, this is what these churches
do. They, they don't call me when
things are going great. I promise you.
They call me when they're in in serious decline and don't know
how to pull out of it. And for some of that, it's
actually a theological problem. It's the fact that they've
stopped living out the word of God and they started hanging on
to traditions. They have golden calves.
Now, I've said this to you before, but I like the
illustration so much that I'm going to say it again because I
think it's fun. I don't care what you've seen in
a movie. I don't care what you've seen in
a Western movie. But if a cow standing on a
railroad track and that train hits that cow, that cow is going
to explode in a million pieces. Now, my preference is to get the
cow off the track, but one way or the other, that train will
run right over that cow. And golden calves and traditions
that take priority over truth and over understanding how to
actually reach a world with the gospel can actually produce
problems. And So what we want to do is we
want to live according to the word of God and the will of God,
and not simply according to some tradition or opinion or gossip,
etcetera. So what is our true Christian
identity? Right here's here's what we're
asking upon what theological hills must we die?
What is of first importance? What gets you into heaven?
What defines you as a saved believer.
Pastor Charles and I and she may be here tonight.
I won't embarrass her by pointing her out if she is but
but we had the wonderful opportunity this week of
visiting with a lovely lady about the gospel 82 years old
and she prayed and asked Jesus into her heart this week as we
were sharing with her. It was a wonderful time and we
were just, it was just a very an honest conversation about what
we believe and what we we need to believe.
It was just a lovely, just wonderful conversation.
Plus she had a cute dog name that I liked and, and, and liked
me, which is nice. But even though he kind of
ignored me, I was a little offended.
But anyways, good. So let's start right here.
Acts chapter 16 verse 29 says this.
If you remember, Paul and Silas are in jail.
God opens up the jail. The jailer is scared to death
and the jailer called for lights and rushed in and trembling with
fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas.
Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be
saved? OK, this is pretty, pretty
foundational. This is pretty primary great
question to ask. What do I need to be a
Christian? That was part of the
conversation this week and they said believe in the Lord Jesus
and you will be saved, you and your household.
So you have to believe now that you've heard me talk about that.
If you were here Sunday, you heard me talk a lot about this,
that you have to faith in Christ.
You have to and that that that means to rely upon, to trust in,
to cling to, to put your whole weight upon.
It doesn't just mean a head knowledge.
It means that you're, you're trusting him with your whole
existence and that you faith in him.
So there's that again, to believe, but to believe, we have
to know and understand certain truths.
There's certain things about Jesus and about the gospel you
need to know in order to know what it is to believe in, right?
And so when you're talking about believing in Jesus, what does
that mean, right? What does that mean to believe
in the gospel? We're going to spell that out a
lot in our personal evangelism training.
But in the in the classes that often teach at the seminary, we
actually discussed this. What must a person understand?
And we even sometimes say that what's the minimum a person must
understand in order to be really saved.
Now, that's not my goal. My goal is not minimalism, but
but what is that minimum thing? What, what must they understand
in order to be saved and be able?
And then what? What must I be able then to
articulate out to a lost world? So one of the things that I do
to them, I'm not going to do it to you all, although it would be
fun. It would just take several hours
is that I actually make the students take 90 plus Bible
stories and we'll take 90 starting from Genesis to
Revelation. We have 90, I think it's 93
Bible stories. And they have to decide which of
these Bible stories provide content that are absolutely
necessary for salvation. And they rank them 1-2 and
three. So they, you have to know this
in order to be saved. And then I wish you could know
this. And then for discipleship, you
should know this. And they rank all 93 of those
Bible stories according to the priority of salvation versus
discipleship, right? And so and so they do this and
it takes them a while. And we have to understand and
believe certain things to be a Christian.
What are those things? So there are some doctrinal
theological hills that are worth dying on if these things aren't
true. We aren't Christians, and so
they determine the outcome of the entire battle, frankly.
So these are the first level primary foundational ideas that
we're going to talk about tonight.
There's a there's a theologian author named Gavin Ortland who
wrote this. Some first ranked doctrines are
worth fighting for because they mark a fault line between the
gospel and a rival ideology, religion or worldview.
Some first ranked doctrines are worth fighting before because
they constitute a material point of the gospel.
More simply, some first rate doctrines are needed to defend
the gospel and others to proclaim the gospel.
Without them, the gospel is incomplete.
And so we recognize that there are certain things we have to
believe in order to share the gospel or even believe in the
gospel. And so they define what the true
gospel is. And that defines who we are as
true believers and not what we might call cultural Christians.
How many of you know cultural Christians who who may or may
not actually understand the gospel?
And I know we're not to judge the heart and mind of people,
but we just see that in their life, right?
And then remember what Doctor Mueller said last week.
He said these first order doctrines represent the most
fundamental truths of the Christian faith.
And the denial of these doctrines represent nothing less
than an eventual denial of Christianity.
So first level theological issues would include those
doctrines most central and essential to the Christian
faith, right? So we're going to talk about
what some of these are in detail and look at some scripture.
So these first level doctrines, you got to think about it this
way. These first leverage, these
primaries are very gospel focused, right?
They're very much about what the gospel would say.
You must believe these things to be saved.
You must believe these things to go to heaven.
You must believe these things to actually be a Christian.
So another theologian, Michael Whitmer, says this.
The essential beliefs of the Christian faith are clustered
around the story of salvation so that they surround it.
You have things like this, the triune God.
So who is God? That's that's a primary
doctrine. We have to know that in fact,
after last session, someone came up to me and they were talking
about some folks in the Connect group, in their small group, and
they were talking about this and how when we share the Gospel
today, and by the way, when we do personal evangelism, I'm
actually going to show you how to critically analyze gospel
tools and tracts and things like that because it's really hard in
today's world out there for most people.
We're probably not going to start in Romans.
We're probably not going to start in the Gospel of John.
Guess what book we need to start in, in Genesis, right?
And so we have to define who this God is, because we can't
assume they know. So here's what he says.
So one of them is the triune God.
Another one is a fallen humanity.
In other words, sin. We have to know what that is.
We need to understand sin. We need to understand who God
really is. We understand what sin really
is. We can't be saved unless we
understand some of that, right? And then we need to understand
the God man, Jesus, who died in our place, and our need to
repent of the sin that is killing us and claiming and
claim the forgiveness and new life offered in Christ.
These are the truths the Holy Spirit uses to regenerate us.
So there's certain things we have to know before the Holy
Spirit comes in and helps us with our salvation experience.
So this first level is very salvation centric, very gospel
and salvation centric, right? So included among those most
crucial doctrines would be things again like the Trinity,
the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, justification by
faith, and the authority of Scripture.
So you got to understand that this goes all the way back to
the early church. So in the earliest churches, in
these early years of the church, they fought false teaching.
In fact, when you read the New Testament, many of the epistles
that were written, especially when you get into John and some
of those, they're fighting false teaching in the church.
Paul had to do that too. And so early on, there are false
teachers who are attacking several of these doctrinal
issues. One of the primary things that
the early false teachers attacked was who is Jesus and
the deity of Christ and his relation, God the Son, his
relationship to God the Father, the Trinity, They they fought
all this stuff. And So what is the Trinity and
how do these relationships work? So again, let me quote Mueller.
I won't quote him all night long, but but let me quote
Mueller again. He says the earliest creeds and
councils of the church were emergency measures taken to
protect the central core of Christian doctrine and
orthodoxy. They, the heresy was condemned
and these councils dealt with doctrines of unquestionable
first order importance. And we just take it for granted.
When you come to a church like this, it preaches the Bible like
we do and teaches that you might take it for granted.
Don't because they don't out there.
They don't, and we're surrounded by people who don't know this
stuff and they don't understand it.
And so the church had to affirm the full deity and the full
humanity of Jesus Christ because they're absolutely necessary to
the Christian faith. If Jesus is not God Incarnate,
the cross doesn't work in the same way, and so we have to
understand who he is. So the doctrine of the
incarnation is just as important as many others, and often we
don't talk about it enough. So it's vital.
It provides the context behind the meaning of the life, burial
and a death burial, physical resurrection of Jesus.
So it matters who Jesus is, which is why in a couple of
sessions from now, I'm going to spend the whole time talking
about who is Jesus and why does it matter that we believe this
about him, Right. So those who deny these truths
are not Christians. And the same thing happened with
the Trinity. And Trinity's difficult at times
to explain. The early church had to clarify
and edify its understanding of one true and living God by
affirming the full deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, while also insisting the Bible reveals one God in three
persons. We're not polytheistic, right?
What does that mean? Poly.
Yeah, many gods. We're not polytheistic.
Even though to be honest with you, no offense necessarily
meant, but a but a Muslim would consider us polytheistic.
One of the worst things to do. If you have somebody who's
Islamic, somebody who's a Muslim, don't, don't go down the
Trinity road in your first conversation or you're going to
lose them. Because they believe our belief
in the Trinity is actually polytheistic and they are
strongly mono one God, Allah theistic.
And so that's one of the heresies.
They think Christianity actually embraces and puts up a barrier
at times. So we we want to think through
how we're doing that. But the way true salvation also
matters. So salvation by grace through
faith is a primary issue. It has to happen that way, which
is why you heard me share so strongly.
I pray on Sunday about it. Because without it, we deny the
gospel. We make salvation some form of
human works righteousness. So we've got to hold fast to
that. We also have to hold fast to the
infallibility and errancy of Scripture, which is why next
session I'm going to spend so much time on it, right?
So we'll get to that more. But one disease of our fallen
sinful world is the fact that they have no source of
authority, right? And so we really do want to
emphasize the fact that the Holy Bible is this inspired,
infallible, inerrant word of God and, and, and frankly, the one
that defines our, our whole belief system.
And so I'm going to, I'm going to talk more about that and the
fact that, that the Bible is this authority.
This is not a, this is not a unique or new thing we have to
believe in. This goes all the way back, all
the way back to the Bible times and even the Garden of Eden.
Listen to second Timothy, chapter 3.
He writes this while evil people then, and imposters will, will
go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
But As for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly
believed, knowing from whom you've learned it and how.
From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred
writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through
faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by
God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and
for training and righteousness that the man of God may be
complete, equipped for every good work.
And I'm going to spend a lot of time on that, frankly, both
Sunday and next session together.
But it's our final standard of authority and truth, right, and
the basis for all of our beliefs, which is right.
The psalmist writes in Psalm 119 in a couple of different places.
He writes, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my
path. And verse 130 says the unfolding
of your words gives light. It imparts understanding to the
simple. So we, we, we need to unfold his
word and in a complete way so that even the even the simpleton
like me can understand it and that people can actually
understand what they need to understand in order to
understand the gospel and in order to be saved.
So let me give you a few ideas and tests to help us with some
of this diversity, some of this idea.
How do we know when something's primary and and and important?
And so a theologian named Ryan Putman helps with this.
The first one's called the hermeneutical test.
So some doctrines are clearly explicitly stated in Scripture,
while others are more are are mere implications or
interpretations of biblical ideas.
So there's some doctrines that are black and white.
There's no greatness to it. Thou shalt not you should do.
And these are clearly expressed in Scripture.
They're more primary, while contested doctrines can be often
be more secondary or tertiary. So Christian draws often draw
lines of fellowship and authority along those,
especially those secondary lines.
But people always want to twist these things.
They always want to reinterpret, they always want to reinstate or
reinvent. It seems like it's almost like a
cool thing to have new revelation, which is really
funny because the Bible says you, you can't have that.
But it's interesting to me that everybody wants a new twist on
on on scriptural passages. Listen to what Peter wrote in
Second Peter 3 and count the patience of our Lord as
salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you
according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his
letters when he speaks in them. Of these matters.
There are some things in them that are hard to understand,
which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction
as they do the other scriptures. You, therefore, beloved, knowing
this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with
the error of lawless people and lose your own stability, but
grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. To Him be the glory both now and
to the day of eternity. Amen.
So even Peter's acknowledging that when Paul writes, you can
see the contemporariness of these two guys.
And as Paul's writing these letters, he already knows that
people are twisting Paul's words.
They're twisting the letters. They're twisting doctrine to
match their own opinions, to match their own, their own
twistings and interpretations. I'm sure there was probably even
a spirit of competition in there at times to where people were
jealous of Paul and wanted to be wanted to be the great apostle
or the great teacher or the great missionary.
That still happens in church today.
I know you don't believe that, but I see pastoral competition
often. And so there are some that are
hard to understand, but Peter even says there are some that
are hard to understand and that they get twisted.
But but one of the things that we recognize the more closely A
doctrine can be tied to a biblical passage, the more
authority it should have. So in other words, when the
Bible speaks clearly and you can attach that belief to that,
those are primary doctrines. Often the second one's called
the gospel test. Test is the doctrine and
essential component of the gospel message.
Does this doctrine support the gospel or would it hinder the
gospel if it was rejected? So if you didn't believe this,
could you still share the gospel?
Would the gospel still be true? And what must you believe in
order for you to share the gospel with someone?
Because not every doctrinal matter that has gospel slapped
on it is necessarily really the gospel.
When a favorite soapbox issue comes along, often people will
elevate it to a gospel primary level.
But it's not. And those who agree, those who
disagree with my my soapbox or judged in a wrong, it's my
soapbox. It has to be right.
So Paul makes this clear when he's talking to the Corinthians.
He says here's what the gospel is in First Corinthians 15 for I
delivered to you as of what Yeah, it it there's no question
about this. This is of first importance that
what I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance
with the Scripture. So what we see here is the fact
that there's no question about the fact that there's certain
things that are elevated in meaning.
And I'm going to give us a list. We're walking through this.
This is just introduction. We're going to get the real
thing here in a minute. But but to talk about what these
first level doctrines are. So one of the one of the ways to
categorize them is this. Here are the things here.
Here's what Christians must believe.
Here's what Christians must not reject, and here's what
Christians should believe. Then you get down to the
secondary and tertiary levels where you say here's what some
Christians believe, and you start thinking about different
ways to look at this. There's the third test, the
praxis test, what doctrines and practices are vital for
fellowship and partnership and ministry.
So these doctrines are clearly defined in Scripture, given
first priority room is allowed for differences in
interpretation when it comes to secondary and tertiary things.
But So what? What do we believe here at
Inglewood? Well, if you know anything about
the church, some of you are very familiar with this, some of you
may have no idea what I'm about to say, but constitutionally,
officially, this church has adopted what's called the
Baptist Faith and Message 2000. And the Baptist Faith and
Message gets twisted around in the media.
It was adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000,
which is what's called what it is.
It's the Baptist faith and message has gone through various
versions and to be honest with you, the whole idea of the
Baptist faith and message started from the fact that the
media would always ask questions about what are Southern Baptists
believe and and there wasn't any good summary to tell them.
Here's what most Southern Baptists believe.
And so they created what was called the Baptist Faith and
Message. Now I want to be careful about
what I'm about to say. You got to hear all the
sentences, not just the first one.
Not all Southern Baptists believe every single thing about
the Baptist Faith and Message. And there's not an authority on
the convention level that makes you believe every single thing
about the Baptist faith and message.
That's not how Southern Baptist life works.
We are each individual autonomous churches that
cooperate together to do things together.
But most Southern Baptists believe the Baptist faith, the
message. That's the idea.
So to the outside world, who's trying to understand Southern
Baptists, especially when you come from a more ecumenical
background or say, a Catholic background where doctrine is
handed down and you must believe this specifically or you don't
get to be whatever we are. And so in Southern Baptist life,
we have a little more flexibility than that, but it
all still falls within the parameters of the word of God,
Right, Right. And so most Southern Baptists
believe the things that are written in what's called the
Baptist faith, the message. And you can go online and look
at the Baptist faith, the message and see a whole copy of
that, or you can you can see it in our Constitution.
But the reason I bring it up is simply this.
This church has accepted and adopted this as a, a statement
of belief. So Inglewood believes in this
and it was developed for to help us express that.
Let me just share with you the categories that are described in
paragraph form and a lot of scripture in each of these
paragraphs within the Baptist Faith Message.
I'm just going to give you the topics right now.
So it includes the scriptures, God, man, salvation, God's
purpose of grace, the church, baptism in the Lord's Supper,
the Lord's Day, the Kingdom, last things, evangelism and
missions, education, stewardship, cooperation, the
Christian and the social order, peace and war, religious
liberty, and the family. Now, when I read a list like
that, there's a lot of really vitally important content there.
But, but, but there's also more there than what I would consider
simply first level doctrine. There are other things there.
So you got some secondary and tertiary things mixed in, right?
So what I did just for you? No extra charge is I went and I
took five of the most popular systematic theology books that I
have in my office and I scoured the table of contents and I said
what what would be a kind of a combined list of the doctrines
found in some of the most popular evangelically
conservative, biblically oriented theologies.
Let me share that with you and then we're going to get to a
passage of Scripture, I promise. So here it is, the word of God
in revelation. I'm going to talk about that
next week. God, creation, humanity or man,
sin, Christ, Holy Spirit, Trinity, salvation, church, last
things in the future. Now that list gets us all even
closer, I think, to a better list of where we would find
primary issues. There might be a few things that
we would still debate about how they play out, but these are
getting closer. I need to believe in most of the
things on that list. Now.
There's always going to be a debate about what else and
there's going to be some debate about what we believe about
those things and that's pretty normal.
But and we could spend a year or more studying each of these in
great detail and we're going to continue to discuss these in
great deal. This is the last overview
lesson. But we but, but, but you got to
keep coming because. And then the other thing I want
to encourage you to do, because you didn't think you could come
and not hear this. I really wish you were heavily
engaged in a connect group. See, I had to put that in there
and make sure your students and your children are, are involved
in our family ministries so that that you can get as much of the
menu and the diet of biblical content as possible, right?
And so, but Paul had to deal, if you think about it in his
writings in these churches, Paul had to deal with people who came
from all kinds of weird backgrounds, especially once the
Gentiles came into the picture, right?
Right. Once the Gentiles came into the
picture, you had people who were coming from extremely Pagan
backgrounds who would have brought all kinds of tradition
and opinion and ritual understandings and all kinds of
weirdness to the table, right? And so if you think the church
is weird now, you should have been in it then.
And there was often struggle with their unity and often
struggle with their discipleship because of this mosaic of belief
systems that they brought with him.
So he had to remind them about where they'd come from, but also
to challenge them and encourage them about what the future held
for them. And so I want us to spend a
couple of minutes here in Galatians 4.
So in the same way, we also, when we were children were
enslaved to the elementary principles of the world, but
when the fullness of time had come.
And by the way, that'll be the theme of my Christmas series.
I'm fascinated by that passage. You know, you see that verse on
your Christmas card sometime. And I'm fascinated by what the
meaning of the fullness of time is.
And so I'm going to preach an entire Christmas series over
called The Fullness in the Fullness of Time and what that
means. Why then why there?
Why at that moment in history did Jesus come right?
Why was it in the Middle East 2000, whatever years ago?
Why at that moment in time with Rome, etcetera?
Why We're going to talk about that.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his
son, born of a, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem
those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption
as sons. And because you were sons, God
has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ABBA
Father, so you're no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son,
then an heir through God. Formally, when you did not know
God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.
But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known
by God, since you can get both sides of the fence there, how
can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary
principles of the world whose slaves you want to be once more?
You observe days and months and seasons and years.
I'm afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
Now here's what's interesting about this verse.
When you read the entire context, this is not about
losing salvation. It's not when you read this
context. This is about struggling with
living by faith in the world with these people from a Pagan
background when they're surrounded with darkness and
lostness. And the world was so confused
about the truth and about Jesus And Satan is tempting them to go
back to their old ways to sin. And they had to be reminded who
they really were now. And there was no way for them to
go back to the Pagan lifestyle or practices they once knew.
So they had to live like one who is free, saved, adopted and
saved. And so the idea here is for them
to stand firm in their faith and believe because they were
children of God, because the only thing back there for them
was imprisonment to old ways of sin.
So the gospel was a hill upon which it was worth not only to
stand to fight, to be set free and even to die for these, for
these folks in Galatia. And so one of the things that
they recognize was, is that they were, they were observing
rituals that were part of that Pagan background.
They had brought that with them. So let me see if I can do this
for you. Let me see if I can do this.
This isn't on your sheet and it probably should have been.
So let's talk about some isms for a minute.
You with me. We've done a little, a few of
these, but I'm, I'm going to do this one more time with you
again in a new way. So universalism, who saved
everybody? Pluralism, how many ways to God,
right? Syncretism.
Anybody know that one, the disruption And another way to
say it is a mixture. So syncretism, which I believe
is one of the leading religions of the United States of America,
is where I pick and choose and I take this piece and I take this
piece and I put it together. Now I can give you classic
historic examples of syncretism. One of them is voodoo.
And then you can also look at South American Catholicism.
Voodoo is actually an African religion that comes to the
islands because of slavery and gets mixed in the United States
in certain parts with Catholic symbolism.
And so syncretism is when I pick and choose little pieces of that
religion, little pieces of this religion, and I make my own
religion. Well, that's exactly what our
culture, and often Christians in our culture are doing.
Our churches are full of synchronous.
Well, I don't like that part, but I like this part.
And so I'm going to keep this part.
It reminds me of Jefferson, who would cut out parts of his Bible
he didn't like. He used to have it on display at
Monticello. And if Jefferson didn't like a
part of the Bible, he just tore it out, just cut it out of his
Bible. And so his Bible is just full of
holes. And so if he didn't like it, he
just got rid, got rid of it. And since syncretism, I get to
do the same thing. So I don't like this part of
Christianity, so I'm just going to get rid of it.
But I like that part. So I'll keep that.
And I'll still call myself a Christian, even though I may not
believe in the primary doctrines that are absolutely necessary
for me to actually be saved. Cafeteria Christians.
And so it's an interesting thing because it is a huge thing.
Anybody if I say deism, I need you to understand these things.
You know what deism is? Who were Deists that in in your
knowledge anybody a deist that you know?
So a lot of the founding fathers were actually deists.
Now we don't like that because it it messes with our patriotism
and our and our mix of Christianity.
And I'm not going to go down that road, but many of the
founding fathers were actually deists.
They believe in a God figure and deism.
Here's the classic illustration of deism.
It's the watchmaker. And you'll actually hear people
debate. Atheists will still use this in
the debate against Christianity. It's the watchmaker.
So there's this God being out there who created everything,
wounded up, put it in a box, put the watch on the in a box, put
the box on the shelf. He has nothing to do with it
anymore. So it's a distant, impersonal
God. You have no personal
relationship with this God. He, he might be the creator, but
he has nothing to do with your life.
And so deism actually puts a distance between me and God at
times. Now here's what's interesting.
Now don't throw anything at me and I'm not making a connection
between our founding fathers and who I'm getting ready to mention
again, but Islam has a lot of Deus characteristics.
Don't ever believe that Allah and Yahweh are the same, because
they are not. And they're not by nature.
They're not by characteristic. They're not by desire.
A law would never die on the cross for someone.
Allah would never lower himself to die on the cross for you.
A law is a distant God that you're trying to appease.
It's deism to a large degree, but I also think that we have a
bunch of Diaz in the United States of America who don't call
themselves Diaz because you'll hear people talk about God,
somebody dies, somebody famous dies.
We're praying with, you know, celebrities, musicians, athletes
all talk about, well, my, but you know, I'm praying for them.
Our prayers go up to them, right?
And there's absolutely nothing else in that person's life that
indicates any faith relationship whatsoever by their normal
behavior, right? But there's some prayer thing,
some prayer connection to a God thing that they obviously have
in their belief system. Now, again, I can't judge them,
but I know people who believe in a God, but they have no personal
relationship with them. I know people on Southern
Baptist church rolls who are Deists and they have some God
figure in their head, but there's no personal relation in
other words. And that what that means is I
don't have any responsibility either.
See, I'm not interacting with God, and so I can kind of do
whatever I want, and God doesn't really care in a way.
So deism is a thing right now. I'm going to get weirder, and
I've shared a couple of these things with you before, but I
want to get it on this podcast too.
So if I say inclusivism, you're not probably going to know what
I mean. So there's a specific movement
within the church, Within the church.
It's always within the church, within the Christian Church
called inclusivism. And it's it's a weird form of
pluralism and almost universalism, but it's a little
different. An inclusivist could come right
here and say they could quote John 14-6.
I'm the way, the truth and the life.
No one can come to the Father except through me and we go,
Amen, brother. They can quote Acts 4.
There's no other name under heaven by which you can be saved
except Jesus. Amen, Amen, Amen.
They can quote Philippians. Every knee will bow and every
tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.
And we go, man, that's right. Thank you, brother.
We're on the same page.
But here's what they mean. They mean that when you die,
you're going to stand before God, not know exactly how this
looks, but you're going to stand before God.
And regardless of what you believed on earth, you're going
to have this moment when you realize that if you were a
faithful person, whether you are a faithful Buddhist, whether
you're a faithful Muslim, whether you're a faithful animus
who worships a rock, whatever you were, if you were faithful
in your belief system, there's going to be this moment after
you die that God's going to reveal to you that the source of
your belief, the source of your faith, the source of your light,
was Jesus Christ and what he did for you on the cross.
And you're going to have an opportunity after death to trust
in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
And every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.
It's just going to be after death.
And they'll teach that inside Christian churches.
It's a, it's a more liberal view because here's what that does.
It takes all the emotional pressure off, doesn't it?
See, I don't have to worry about those Hindus that we pray about
in our UUPGS. If they're faithful Hindus,
they're fine. If they're faithful Muslims,
they're fine. If they're faithful Buddhists,
they're fine. If they're faithful Jews,
they're fine. If they're faithful nature
worshippers, they're fine. If they're really good tree
huggers, they're in good shape as long as they really believe
in whatever it is they really believe.
Because they're going to get the opportunity later to hear that
the reason they were able to do that is because Jesus died on
the cross for their sins and paid for their paid for them and
rose again. Isn't that interesting?
So it's a weird, synchronistic, pluralistic, almost
universalistic combination. It's one of the most dangerous
movements in the Christian Church in the in America today
that people don't know about. And that's where liberalism in
churches today are actually getting their view of salvation.
So that I don't have to worry about evangelism, don't have to
worry about that. Takes all the pressure off.
That weird question of what
about that, that, that, that, that Hindu that lives in the
village and never gets a chance to hear about Jesus.
I don't have to worry about them.
They're taken care of. Takes all the pressure off.
See. Well, there's another view
called exclusivism. And that's that's my disease.
Exclusivism says that I have to trust in Jesus Christ as my Lord
and Savior and believe that he died on the cross for my sins
and the only one who could and he rose again and I have to do
it while I'm alive because that's what the Bible says.
Now you got to understand, let me show you this.
Let's pretend like this is world Christianity, my hands.
This is representing the billions of whoever really are
Christians in the world. Not for me to I'm glad it's not
for me to decide that right? Here are those who believe
totally in exclusivism. Here are those who believe in
exclusivism and the complete inerrancy of the Bible, and here
are those who believe in exclusive exclusivism,
inerrancy, and assurance of salvation.
You got to understand how narrow the gate is that I walk in now.
Are all those people lost? Not my call, but I know what the
Bible says to me. As I flip back to that page,
that list, all I know is the Bible says to me that if I don't
believe a whole gospel, I can't be saved.
We've got to share the whole truth with them.
And that truth includes I need to know who God is, but even
even before that. So here's the problem.
From what source am I defining God?
The Bible. So even before I start talking
about who God is, I've got to know what this is in my life,
this making sense. Which is why next week, that's
all we're going to talk about. This is the hill of authority.
It's worth dying on if I don't have that settled and if I don't
have some way to describe that to the people I'm talking to,
even if it's just the fact that I'm not saying convince them.
Don't misunderstand me. I don't.
I'm here to persuade. The Bible says in 2nd
Corinthians 5, I'm going to employ you.
I'm going to beg you to come to Christ.
I can't make you. I can't make you believe.
I've got to have the Holy Spirit to do that.
But I'm going to implore you. I'm going to.
But I need to be intelligent enough to have a conversation
when I'm confronted by somebody who thinks they're smarter than
I am. Because, you know, they think
we're a bunch of backward rednecks.
And some of us are, but the rest of you are pretty cool people.
I mean, I'm from Tahlequah. OK, So.
But if, if we can't articulate to some degree why I believe
what I believe about the Bible, why would they want to listen to
you, right? You don't even know why you
believe what you believe. Now, faith is an answer.
It's a faith issue, isn't it? But we also need to have some
ideas to back up our faith. So we're going to talk about
that next week. So then I need to say, here's
who God is. My God, the real God, the
biblical God, Yahweh, Jehovah, this is who he is.
These are his natures, this is who He is, and if I do that well
enough, then the understanding of sin is easier track with me.
If you understand who God is, you'll understand why sin's a
problem, see, because part of the problem we're going to have
to define sin. I used to always write when I
told you at the beginning in class, what must a person
understand? We'd go through those 93 things
and they'd tell me this story and this or what do you think a
story is? They have to believe in just
name one name one story you have to believe in from the Bible to
be saved. The the what Jesus is crucified.
I heard that one virgin birth might be who is Jesus, you know,
and, and things like that. And in the resurrection,
obviously things like that. Well, you'd be amazed at what
the students come up with. You know, suddenly I'm, I'm
getting a jar full of oil from a prophet and I'm like, what are
you with? And so these are illustrations.
Why use that to explain? OK, let you know it's funny.
So we're writing them on the board.
But then I make a list of saying, listen, you better nail
down these things in your own heart and, and, and you better
nail down the Bible. You better nail down who God is.
You've got to define sin in this world because they define it
differently out there. See, out there, it's normal now.
It's normal now things like, I mean, and if you're doing this,
I'm not trying to, I don't know. So I'm not pointing at you
because I don't know. But it's normal now to live
together before you're married, almost expected, you're almost
stupid if you don't, is the idea.
Why wouldn't you give it a test run before you got married?
Or why even get married or, or, or same sex issues or gender
confusion. These things are normal.
They're accepted. They're, they're part in fact,
they're defended, aren't they? They're defended.
They're, they're, they're equal to civil rights.
See. And so and so we've got to
understand why do I believe that's wrong or why do I believe
that's right? So I need to be able to identify
sin. And then we've got to talk about
who Jesus is. And we need to have an
understanding even of the Holy Spirit and this Trinitarian
relationship that's very hard and how salvation works.
So that list out of those, those doctrines in those theological
textbooks are pretty good guides.
These are primary issues for the most part.
We could argue a little bit, we could talk about the church and
we could talk about the second coming and some things like
that. We could have some different
perspectives and that would be fine.
But we've got to be able to find these things in truth.
So one day when you have five hours and the right audience is
in the room, I'll share my testimony.
But but the first time I heard the gospel, I was a young child
and I was at a college football game.
We had a College in our hometown.
It's where we played high school ball on that field.
But I was a little kid and you and I got to run around probably
more than I should in those days.
And I was somewhere and we were playing like a little football
game of our own down on one end of the state down there on the
grass. And there were college kids
there. And a college kid comes up to
him and he says, you know, I want to talk to you.
And he and he holds out a dime. I'll never forget this.
He holds out and I had a dime in his hand and he goes here, take
the dime. And I'm like, what's the catch?
You know, he goes, take it. It's a free gift.
So he gives me the dime. Well, guess what's next.
You know, we're in Romans 3, three, you know, 623 and 323.
We're walking right through the Romans road, right for the
gospel. And he shares the gospel with
me. I'd never heard that in my life.
I hadn't been in church. I didn't go to church.
I didn't know what church was. And I hear this gospel
presentation. It gives me nightmares.
I have nightmares for weeks after that as a kid.
I'll never forget it. The second time I heard the
gospel, and I have shared this with some of you before, was
later in life and I got so angry.
I knocked the guy out. And it was the third time I
heard the gospel. And the third time I heard the
gospel, I heard it in a way that was so authentic and so real
from the person I was hearing it from.
And, and I was so ready and desperate in my life to hear it
that I hungered for what he was saying to me, even though I was
a mess. And he shared the whole gospel
with me. Later this year, we're going to
talk about what that means. How do I share that?
How do I, how do I transition from this to this to get to this
entire story about who God is and what God's plan is and how
he fulfilled that plan and how it's all about you and that you
can have it in your life. And it radically changed me.
And that's all I want us to do for those people out there.
But there are also sad stories along the way.
So I was baptized with my best friend growing up.
Jay Bird, Buffalo meat. Told you I was from Cherokee
country. He had a brother named
Screechow. They called him a Ray, but his
name was Screechow. They were half Cheyenne, half
Cherokee brothers. My best friend's growing up,
good athletes, state champions and Jay.
Jay and I were inseparable for a long time in life.
And he and I were saved and we went forward at First Baptist
Church where we were, and we were baptized.
And the last time I ever talked to him, he was an alcoholic.
And he denied the very existence of God and claimed to be an
atheist in the early days. He's the one who taught me how
to read this book. He's the one that made this book
a part of my daily life. He's the one that taught me how
to pray. And he would be on me about it
because we were on in sports together.
I mean, he'd be rough on me if I wasn't doing what I did.
You read? Did you read your Bible?
Did you pray today? I mean, you know, he thumped me
if I didn't doing it. But he let that twist him and
distract him. We got to know what we believe
and it's got to be an anchor. It's got to be solid, right?
It's got to be who we are not only as individuals, but as a
church. So I appreciate so much you
coming to these experiences. And we're going to talk about
these primaries. Now.
Remember next week, our next session, we're going to talk
about this hill of authority. Why do I, what do I believe
about the Bible and why does it matter?
The week after that, we're going to talk about Jesus.
The week after that, I'm going to come back and we're going to
talk about what are secondary and tertiary doctrines.
And then we're going to come back and I'm going to talk about
at least three things. Now.
I want you to hear these three things.
This I just added a third. I'm actually moving everything a
week later down the road because of this, because of some of my
conversations with you. So the secondaries and
tertiaries, I'm going to talk about eschatology.
What, what, what can we believe about the second coming?
Just to appease some of you, we're going to talk about
spiritual gifts. Are all the spiritual sign gifts
still active today or have some of them ceased and why?
What do we believe about that can be controversial.
It actually separates denominations, some of those
beliefs. And then I want to talk to you
about the doctrine of evil. Now that might sound like a fun
night. I'll wear black, but but I want
to talk to you about, and that's not necessarily even a
secondary, it might be a primary issue, but I want to talk about
and answer that and have that conversation.
Often it's voiced this way, which is a bad way to voice it.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
But it's it more often sincerely from some of you, it's why did
they die? Why were they healed and why did
they die? And I'm going to share with you
why evil and death and sin still exist in this world, because
I've talked to several of you who need that and want to talk
about that. You may be here tonight.
And again, I'm not going to point you out, but even Sunday I
had a conversation with someone where bad things were happening
in life and they wondered if it was their fault.
And I want to talk about why. Why?
Why are we surrounded by this in our world today?
Why does this still exist? And what are we going to do
about it? And so then we're going to move
on into some other things later on.
But that's what's going to happen these next few weeks, OK.
And so appreciate you being here.
So let me pray for us. We're a little early tonight,
but I bet you'll survive. I hate getting out early.
I heard that. I heard that.
Well, I can tell another story. But Father, we are so grateful.
Father, I just thank you that these people have come and and
this is a lot of introductory material and some of it's a
little heavy. Maybe it's it leave in even a
little technical. I don't want it to be boring,
but we needed to kind of lay this foundation.
Father and I thank you for these folks who are enduring this and
Father, next, next few sessions when we really get into some
specifics into your word about important truths about you and
about what you said, I pray Father that even more would
come. Father, we we need to know who
you are as much as we can. And Father, you've revealed to
us all we need to know about you.
Now, Father, I look forward to the day where I'm going to learn
more than that. But for now, here on the in this
place, in this life, on this planet, Father, you've revealed
to us all we need to know about you, both in your word and your
will, through your spirit, through prayer, we know those
things. And so, Father, help us, Lord,
to become so intimately aware of who you are, that Father, what
it does. And sometimes it's very painful.
So because Father, sometimes this triage idea, this medical
treatment idea, it comes back on us a little bit because once we
realize what we should be believing and what we should be
doing, sometimes, Father, we look in the mirror and we
recognize that we're falling short.
It's really the definition of sin in one way, that hamartia,
that falling short of the target.
But Father, that's important for us.
If we don't know what the perfect standard is, if we don't
know what the perfect truth is, we don't know who the perfect
one is, then we're never going to know how we need to grow
because all of us need to improve.
All of us need to correct, all of us need to be better.
None of us is perfect. And so, Father, I pray, Lord,
that you'll help us that as we come together and learn and
study together, that Father, our desire is really to grow, to
know you better so that then we can know ourselves better.
And when we understand that dynamic Father, then we can see
the gap between the two and we'll know this is the area
where I really need to work. This is the area where I need to
grow, but also this is how I could help somebody else.
That's called the church. We're not only do we learn that
about ourselves, but we learn that about others and we help
one another so that I might be weak in this area and you're
strong in that one. You help me.
I might be stronger in that area and you're weaker and I help
you. That's called being the body,
Father. So over these next few weeks, I
pray we'll be dedicated to be here to build upon this
foundation. And Lord, for us really to
understand how I can, how I can not only in my own heart, nail
down certain things of what I believe, but Father, when I go
out there to this world, Father, I can actually articulate and
share with somebody. Father, I don't have to defend
you. As one author said, it'd be like
defending a lion. I don't have to defend you, but
Father, I can share about you and share in a way that people
could understand, share in a way that makes sense, share in a way
they could lead them to a greater knowledge of you.
Thank you for your word. Thank you for your truth.
Thank you that you made clear to us the gospel.
Thank you for being such an awesome creator that you didn't
want to create Father without the opportunity for us to have a
relationship with you and Father.
Even when we messed up and we mess up and we continue to mess
up, Father, You have graciously given us a way to be forgiven.
And Father, I pray, Lord, that we'll continue to seek to be
closer and closer to You in our walk.
But thank you, Father, for sending your son to pay for it.
Thank you, Father, for an empty tomb that proves it.
Thank you, Father, that one day, maybe today, you're going to
going to allow the return to happen.
And the sun's going to come and the trumpets are going to blow.
And the Father, we have people that we need to bring with us so
that we truly can all sit in a in a room with people from every
tribe, every tongue and every nation.
And we can all truly bow our knees and confess with our
tongues who is really Lord, Thank you for Inglewood.
I pray you'll bless us these next few days.
Help us this Sunday to worship you well.
I pray, Father, that you'll help me as I share about you.
Father, just bless us tonight in Christ's name, Amen.
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.