Speaking for him We're going
to open up the scriptures tonight. We're going to start in John
chapter 1 Verses 29 through 34 and my son Cole here is going
to read them and lead you all in prayer here in a minute and
he didn't tell me what we were going to read tonight. I let
him pick and I Was reading here John 1.29. I looked up Henry
Mahan's commentary really quickly here on my iPad. And I love what
he says here about the Lamb of God. He's come to take away the
sin of the world. He says in Genesis 4.4, we have
the Lamb typified. In Genesis 22.8, we have the
Lamb prophesied. In Exodus 12, verses 5 through
7, we have the lamb slain and the blood applied. In Isaiah
53, verses 1 through 7, we have the lamb personified. Amen. And in John 129, we have the
lamb identified. Christ our Lord. We're reading from John, starting
1 John, or I'm sorry, the book of John, chapter one, verse 29. The next day, John seeth Jesus
coming unto him, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After
me, come with a man, which is preferred before me, for he was
before me, and I knew him not, but that he should be made manifest
unto Israel. Therefore am I come baptizing
with water. And John bear record saying,
I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode
upon him. And I knew him not. But he that
sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, upon whom
thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him. The same
is he which baptize with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bear
record that this is the Son of God. Dear Lord, we come to you tonight
to thank you for the many blessings you have blessed us with and
the greatest blessing of all, which is the gift of your Son
to come sacrifice himself for your people, the gift of the
perfect Lamb. And we thank you for that. What
an amazing thing it is to know that we are redeemed and not
by our own will or works, but by the sacrifice of your son. And Lord, we pray for the people,
for your saints who are going through trials and afflictions.
We may not know all their names, but you do. And we pray that
you would comfort them according to your will. And Lord, we pray
for you to give the words of which the minister or the preacher
to use when preaching the gospel. And we pray that Christ would
be glorified and the minister would use the words to preach
Christ and him crucified. And we just thank you for all
these things. and your perfect lamb. In your son's name we pray. Amen. All right. Thank you. Thank you,
Cole. Thank you all for coming out tonight. Worship with me
to worship our sovereign creator. It's a pleasure to be able to
stand here and to be able to read the scriptures together
and to honor the Lord and his gospel. Our family, we've really
appreciated living here amongst all of you. It's been about,
let's see, was it six months, hun, since we moved here? September, yeah, six months. I haven't even gotten to meet
all of you. There's still so many that are part of this church
that that haven't really made it in because of the virus and
this pandemic. And a lot of you are at home
to protect yourself and your family from the virus, and I
understand that. And I know there are a lot of you out there watching
the service on the internet, but I'd like to get to know a
whole lot better. But I'd like to just reiterate to y'all how
thankful I am to the Lord. and this congregation for being
so welcoming. Thank you for welcoming us into
this church family and the community at large. And it's really good to call
this place home. And I know there are some listeners
and viewers out there tonight in internet land. They're all
out there around the world listening that aren't a part of any congregation
due to the circumstances the Lord's placed them in. It's difficult
to find congregations that are faithful to the scriptures and
to the truth. And I'm kind of a purist anyway, so that's why
we moved our family from St. Louis to Ashland. It's not to
say there aren't other believers in Missouri and St. Louis, it's
just I wanted to be part of a place and a people that was more faithful
to the scriptures than what we could find there. We wanted to
be part of a people that were faithful to the gospel. faithful
to preach it. So Jim asked me to preach, and
when he did, I had determined at that time I was going to speak
on one of my favorite topics, God's absolute sovereignty over
all things. And I had even started to prepare
for that. But it is one of my favorite subjects, but it's one
that delights my soul, but for some reason or another, gospel
unity was instead put onto my mind. So that's what I'm going
to preach about tonight, unity in the gospel. So hopefully Jim
asked me to preach again. And if he does, I'll, I'll save
that sermon on absolute sovereignty of God for another time. Um,
anyway, I hope you'll have me to preach again cause I really
like doing this, but tonight the title for the message is
with one accord. So if you would, please open
up the scriptures with me to the second chapter of the book
of Acts. We're going to briefly read about
the early church and the early days of the ministry of the apostles. And we're going to start in verse
36. Peter's just finishing up giving his sermon on testifying
the work of Christ and the work Christ has performed in fulfillment
of scripture, where many heard his message in their native tongue.
It was one of those miraculous events. It was a speech at Pentecost. And the last words that he spoke
here are in verse 36. Therefore, let all the house
of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus
whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they
heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said unto
Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what
shall we do? And Peter said unto them, repent
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of
the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and
to your children and to all that are far off even as many as the
Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did
he testify and exhort, saying, save yourselves from this untoward
generation. Then they that gladly received
his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto
them about 3,000 souls. And they continued steadfastly
in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of
bread, and in prayers. They continued steadfastly in
the apostles' doctrine. What does that mean? To continue
in the apostles' doctrine? I think it's pretty simple. It
means they continued in the gospel. So let's keep reading, if you
don't mind. Verse 43. And fear came upon every soul,
and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all
that believed were together, and had all things common. And
they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all
men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with
one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to
house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. praising God and having favor
with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily,
such as should be saved. Oh, there's so much we can learn
from these verses here in Acts. It's the creation of a local
church right here. And notice what's going on. They had all
things in common. They shared their lives with
each other, their time, even the material things. Notice also
that they were of one accord. They met together for worship
and to break bread, remembering the things the Lord Jesus did
for them on Calvary. But also notice that the Lord
add to the church daily. It's the Lord, it's the church
built by God, not the inventions of man. Their church had been
assembled not by the eloquence of man's preaching or by slick
methods. There were no church programs
designed to get people in the doors. Nope, we didn't even have
doors. There were no church programs
designed to get people to attend their meetings and there were
no altar calls. There wasn't a rock band concert
designed to get converts. Peter wasn't up there with a
rock guitar. And he wasn't smiling up on stage
telling people how to have their best life now. or how they could
get a lot of money. Simply put, Peter spoke the gospel
in plain language. The Holy Spirit came upon people
who heard this message. He opened their hearts and their
eyes to understand the gospel, and they were regenerated, and
they were added to the church. Simple as that. And that's how
it's done today. Nothing's changed. The Lord adds
to his church. He adds them to his people. And
it is his gospel that he brings them in with. It's the gospel
of sovereign grace that works, freely given to his people. It's
all about Christ. And this message, if you're one
of God's elect, it needs no additions or anything to spice it up or
make it more appealing. It's a message that does not
appeal to the world. but only to people like me and
people like you, needy sinners. We know we're sinners and we
need this message badly. Let's go ahead and go back to
verse 42. They continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and
fellowship. I love that verse and verse 46, they continuing
daily with one accord in the temple, not two accords, not
three accords, and they weren't arguing over theology, but they
were with one accord. This passage is speaking of unity
of the early believers. Oh, how blessed it is to dwell
amongst the house of the Lord together in unity. Don't you
like it? You like being unified with each
other? I do, I do. But what is it that unifies us?
Is it a confession? Is it a creed? Is it the way
we dress? Well, in certain places, that
can be the primary way folks are unified. You see, they get
dressed, they go to church, they sing the same songs, then they
go out to lunch. And there's nothing wrong with
that, going out to lunch. They have a nice little social
club, but that's not what we're here for. That's not what unifies
us. Where we go to eat after church,
that isn't what unifies us together. How we dress isn't what makes
us different from the rest of the world. Some people think
that their style of baptism is what unifies them with one another. But what unified men like Augustus
Toplady and John Gill? They had a disagreement over
water baptism. Augustus believed you should
baptize babies. John Gill believed you should only baptize believers.
And these two men, we still use their works today in this church.
They were influential in their day, and they continue to bless
us. And both of them are alive in
the 1600s, so if you haven't heard of them, you can go look
them up. John Gill was known as Dr. Voluminous. having written
a commentary on every single verse of the Bible. He knew a
lot, but he still got some stuff wrong. And Augustus Toplady,
well, he translated Jerome Xenakis' book on the doctrine of absolute
predestination. He also got in a big disagreement
with Methodist leader John Wesley, and he's mostly famously known
for writing the hymn, Rock of Ages. And both of these men's
works have affected me greatly. I'm sure many of you as well.
And I'm clearly on the side of John Gill here. I believe that
only believers ought to be baptized. It's a joyful testimony we give
when we are baptized in water and we are brought by the grace
of God to believe the gospel and rest in the righteousness
of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we come out of the waters
of baptism before the congregation, soaking wet, that's the way it
should be, it's a testimony of joy. It's a testimony that we
as believers, we've been crucified with Christ, went into the ground
with Christ, and having died with Christ, and then raised
with Christ. It's a testimony that we've been
given a new heart and are now alive unto the truth. And baby
can't express this truth to others. They can't even talk yet. But
some believers today, they like top lady. I believe they're wrong. But does this mean we can't have
unity with one another if we disagree on baptism? That's a
tough question. That's a tough question to answer.
And I'll come back to that question. But I'll say this, our primary
unity is not in how we view water baptism. even if the name of
our church is, after all, 13th Street Baptist. The scriptures
state that it should be our goal for us to strive for unity. Amos 3, verse three says, can
two men walk together lest they be agreed? Let's turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter one. And we're gonna start in verse
10 here. Paul's addressing the church in Corinth, and they had
a lot of problems. And prior to this verse, Paul's
kind of treating these believers with kid gloves. But if you start
here in verse 10, he starts to address their problems. Now I
beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that ye all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among
you, but that you'd be perfectly joined together in the same mind
and in the same judgment." Right there, we're to speak the same
things. We're to profess the same truths. And we are to preach
and speak the same message of grace in Christ to each other. And secondly, there shouldn't
be any divisions amongst us. There shouldn't be any in church
fighting or arguing with each other. We shouldn't be arguing
over doctrine or debating one another, but we should be unified
over doctrine. So how do we do that? Well, we
should be perfectly joined together, living in harmony, and we should
be agreed on matters of doctrine and other things as much as we
possibly can agree upon. We are the body and Christ is
the head. And we are his adopted children
in the Lord. That makes me and you brothers
and sisters, whether we like it or not, we're brothers and
sisters and we need to strive together to maintain that unity. But how we go about that can
be difficult at times, as I'm sure a lot of experienced believers
here have experienced over time. Lots of groups throughout the
centuries, they've attempted to maintain unity through the
use of very long, detailed creeds. If you're a student of church
history, you'll find that there have been large creeds written,
like the Westminster Confession of Faith, or the London Baptist
Confession of 1644. They got a 1689 version. And many church groups out there,
they use multiple creeds. And they'll even call them the
three forms of unity. That's the Belgic Confession,
the Canons of Dort, and the Heidelberg Catechism. And I've found that
I've actually enjoyed reading these documents. But to call
them the three forms of unity, that's a bit of a stretch for
me. But men think they've got the whole unity problem figured
out with these confessions and creeds. How are we to be unified,
they ask. They say, read this creed. Agree
with me on it, and you're good. But if you're like me, when you
sit down to read a large detail creed, you find you can't have
perfect unity with this confession or that creed. The creeds don't
even agree with each other on every point. They leave no room
for freedom of conscience or thought. They have very strict
guidelines you must abide by. And in my opinion, they create
a false unity. So we as a congregation, we have
pretty much rejected the use of a detailed creed to sort of
enforce the unity decree that Paul was speaking here in the
first chapter in his letter to the church at Corinth. When you
walk in the door, you're not given a big detailed creed that
you have to abide by in order to be unified with us. I think
we're getting that part right. And it's one of the things that
really drew me to this congregation. I didn't just pack up my things
and move my home hundreds of miles away from here, from St. Louis to here, making sure we
had a unity that I thought was not sustainable. I wanted to
make sure it was sustainable. So what is it that holds us together?
What is it that makes 13th Street Baptist Church here in Ashland
a desirable congregation to be a part of? Well, the answer is
simple, the gospel. We are unified over one thing
primarily, the gospel, the gospel of grace, the gospel of Christ,
the gospel of freedom in Christ. We are now free from the law,
and we meet regularly to worship, to pray with one another, and
in one accord, we sing our praises to our creator. And we've been
missing out on the singing, but I hope we get it back soon. But
anyway, we're not bound to a creed or confession because we're thankful
and love the Lord and to each other. We have agreement on all
the important gospel doctrines, things like the total depravity
of man, the election of salvation from before the foundation of
the world in Christ, Christ dying for his people and only his people,
and the grace of God which is simply irresistible. And of course,
we shall persevere in that faith until the very end, because it's
all a gift. And when we gather, there's an
implicit and explicit reason as to why we gather. We gather
to remember the Lord and his sacrifice and substitutionary
life and death on behalf of us. And when he went to the cross
and died and bled, he did it for us. And God has clothed us with his
righteousness from eternity, and we stand before his throne
blameless. Why? Because Christ did it all. We didn't have to do anything,
we just get it. Our believing this doesn't make it so. Our
believing of the gospel, it's a gift of grace that is given
to each of us at his appointed time. We were predestinated to
be his children from before the foundation of the world. And
when we came to believe, we didn't come of our own power. We didn't
exercise our so-called free will. We came willingly, yeah, but
that's only because the Lord enabled us. Our belief, it was
granted from above. In Acts 13, 48, it says the Gentiles
heard this gospel. They were glad and glorified
the Lord. the word of the Lord, and as
many as were ordained to eternal life, believed. It doesn't say
as many as decided of their own free will to accept that gift,
believed. It says as many as were ordained.
In order to believe, you gotta be ordained. And so, this belief
doesn't save us in the sight of God. Belief is a result of
our salvation in the sight of God. It's given to us to assure
us that our sins are forgiven and put away forever in Christ.
Our faith is the means by which we lean upon the Lord for all
things, as in Christ, by which we can do all things. On our
own, we're nothing. But in Christ, we can do everything. And that's the basis of our unity.
this gospel that we have, and it should be our rule of life
for everything. It should be how we judge. It's
how we determine how to greet one another. It's why we meet. We don't get together because
we have a list of rules that we agree are right. We don't
get together and worship our Lord because some creed tells
us to. We're unified by Christ. And
because of that unity we have over this primary thing, the
primary issue as I call it, this gospel, everything else becomes
secondary. And I thought for, I tried to
come up with a few examples of how we're unified on the gospel
and how it derives how we relate to one another. The COVID vaccine,
for example. This could, if you go out there
in the world, it's one big argument over the COVID vaccine. And some
of us here believe you should be vaccinated for the COVID-19
virus. In fact, I think most of you
probably already have. And there's some of us also that
aren't quite ready to get that shot. Can we be unified if we
disagree on the vaccine? My answer is yeah. We have unity
in Christ. Whether you get vaccinated or
not, it doesn't affect the gospel. Here's another one. Some churches
believe you shouldn't use musical instruments in worship service.
Others do. I don't have a problem with that.
I like musical instruments. But is that a reason why we shouldn't
have unity with one another if we have a disagreement on musical
instruments? I don't think so. The musical instruments don't
affect the gospel. If you don't think Marty and
David shouldn't play their music, then you can just sit there and
learn to appreciate it. Because, well, Christ, for his
sake. Some people don't think we should
celebrate Christmas. Others do. Is this anything to divide over?
I don't think so. That's a little trickier question,
but in the end, if the doctrine or practice is not anti-gospel,
we should just let people be and tolerate one another. We
should overlook each other's infirmities. Not everyone's been
revealed the same amount of truth regarding the scriptures or all
the implications of the gospel as it relates to the practical
day-to-day living of our lives. They think that, but some people,
they think that salvation's not based on God's sovereign election
in Christ. How do we deal with that? They
think Christ died for everyone in the world and that the real
difference maker is an individual's decision. Is that something to
divide over? Can unity be had between those
of us who believe in free and sovereign grace and those who
are looking to the works of their hands or the works of their mind
and volition? I don't think so. That's a doctrine
that affects the primary issue, the gospel, that would not continuing
in the apostle's doctrine. There's no way we could be in
one accord with those who have changed the very gospel message
into one of conditions fulfilled outside of Christ and fulfilled
within the individual. Let's look back at 1 Corinthians
chapter one. Let's keep reading here. Actually,
we're gonna go back a little bit. Verse 10, reread verse 10
through verse 17. Now I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the
same thing, that there be no divisions among you, but that
you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment. Skipping ahead, I thank God that
I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius. Lest any should say
that I baptize in mine own name. And I baptize also the household
of Stephanos. Besides, I know not whether I
baptize any other. For Christ didn't send me to
baptize, but to preach the gospel. Not with wisdom of words, lest
the cross of Christ be made of none effect. We're baptized in
the name of Christ. But here in Corinth, they're
dividing over something pretty stupid, if you ask me. They're
fighting over something stupid. The crazy Corinthians, they were
saying, we're Paul. He preached to us the gospel
and therefore we're believers through him. We aren't going
to listen to anybody else. Another group saying, I don't
really like Paul, we like Apollos. Another group saying, we like
Peter. And another group, they were the super spiritual ones,
we are of Christ, we don't need anyone else. So that was a little
silly thing to be divided over. Christ is our Lord and we're
all one in him. He's given us some people with
certain gifts and others different gifts. We aren't to be exalted
above one another. And Paul isn't saying he dislikes
water baptism here, he's saying through our unity, it's not based
on who baptized us or how we were baptized, That's not our
unity, our unity is not in baptism, our unity is in Christ. Verse 18, for the preaching of
the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which
are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise, where is the
scribe, where is the disputer of this world? Had not God made
foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews
require sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach
Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the
Greeks foolishness. The main business here at 13th
Street is to preach the gospel of Christ, not with man's wisdom
or eloquent speech, but plain, simple, humble language. It's
not our church membership that unifies us. It's not our water
baptism. It's not the clothes we wear
or where we live. And so I'm circling back now
to that question I asked earlier. How can we have unity with each
other when we disagree? The gospel. The gospel is the
primary issue and everything else is secondary. We accept
each other as fellow heirs of the kingdom because we believe
the gospel. If we have a disagreement over
some point of doctrine, it's not nearly a big deal unless
it affects the primary issue, the gospel. And because we have
agreement on the primary issue, the gospel, and then we can sit
down and try to work out whatever differences and disagreements
we have over secondary issues in love. We sit down in love
with open Bibles, open hearts, open minds, and we discuss things
amongst ourselves as family members. That's how we resolve differences
we might have. Either that or you just live
with them. We don't want to hurt each other. We don't want to
hurt fellow heirs of the kingdom. We don't want to disrupt our
unity over the primary issue. If we have disagreements over
politics, or government, or what kind of car we drive, crazy,
I know, you can have a disagreement over that, we can just keep quiet
about it. We don't want to hurt each other. Our unity in Christ
is too precious to give up on. We shouldn't throw it away because
you don't like somebody's Facebook post, or they talked about something
political that you didn't like. And so it's this gospel. That
is how Augustus Toplady, who believed in baptizing babies,
and the strict, particular Baptist John Gill, who believed only
believers should be baptized, got along with each other. They
may not have gone to the same church, but I'm convinced, based
on what little I've read of them, that they loved each other as
brothers. They were close friends, and they encouraged each other
as such. Why? as they shared a unity in the
gospel. They were able to look past their secondary differences
over things that weren't affecting the gospel and encourage each
other in Christ. It was Gill who encouraged Toplady
to publish his translation of Absolute Predestination by Jerome
Zankias. And Toployde encouraged his readers
to read John Gill's sermons and commentary. Let's learn from
these past saints and let's apply it to our own lives. Let's be
unified here amongst ourselves and the church around the world. Verse 18, for the preaching of
the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which
are saved, it is the power of God. We are unified through the preaching
of salvation by the grace of God alone, by Christ alone, who
was crucified. We're unified by the preaching
of righteousness and the peace of reconciliation provided unto
us the blood of Christ's cross. We're unified by Christ who offered
himself up in our stead. And this is nothing but pure
nonsense to a world that's dying. It's foolishness to the wisdom,
the wise of this world. But to those of us who've had
the love of God shed abroad in our hearts and have come to know
who he is, we see in Christ crucified our deliverance from the curse
of God's law. We see in Christ crucified how
God is just and the justifier of those who believe. We're gonna
let some secondary issue get in the way of our unity in Christ.
We're gonna let some practice that does not affect the gospel
destroy what friendship we have. I hope not. I don't see it here
amongst us. But if you hop on the internet,
I see people constantly arguing over every little thing. They're
arguing over politics. They're arguing over the pandemic. They're arguing on how you should
educate your children. They're arguing about what pronouns
we should use when talking to each other. The list of things
people will argue about can go on and on and on and on, and
the world is simply not at peace. They have no unity, and we can
have no unity with them. Verse 19, for it is written,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. I will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent. The world and all of its wisdom,
they don't know what's going on. They don't believe this gospel. They haven't been revealed this
gospel. They haven't been brought to
see who they are before a just and holy God. They think they
got viruses figured out, they got vaccines figured out, yet
they don't even know they are cursed with sin. But we have
the gospel and nothing else matters. You can hold hands with your
Republican neighbor or your Democrat neighbor if you like. You can
pledge allegiance to the flag or not pledge allegiance to that
flag. In the end, it's not gonna matter.
The world's perishing and it's gonna soon be destroyed forever.
Hold on to that which really unifies us, not who is or who
isn't the president. Now let's say you hop on the
internet again and you head over to the theology discussion groups. They've got it all figured out,
right? Nope, they don't. They don't have it figured out
at all. It's the theologians and the churches that need the
gospel more than anyone, it seems. They're arguing about every single
little thing you can imagine. They're arguing about who is
better of them, who is the best of them. They're arguing over
minor points of doctrine that have no relation to the gospel
at all. They're arguing over church practices.
I'm not saying we shouldn't try to get our church practice right,
but without the gospel, it's just vain conversation. They're
arguing over these things because they don't know the gospel. If
there's any place that needs to hear the gospel more than
the town square or on the street, it's the thousands of churches
that are on nearly every street corner. People have sat through
hundreds of sermons listening about how they should live, what
they should do, where they should go, how they should be doing
it. They've listened to thousands of altar calls to the tune of
Just As I Am, but they haven't heard the gospel. And these people
who haven't heard the gospel, Well, they're now on the internet
arguing about whether or not we should use musical instruments
in church or not. They're arguing about which creed
is the best, or they're arguing about who's the better preacher,
or they're arguing about who is saved and who isn't saved,
as if that matters. And they're sitting there arguing
about which holidays we should observe or not observe. The world's
perishing, and they're sitting there arguing over who the better
preacher is. or which preacher is a hair-taker, which one isn't.
They've completely missed the boat. Things haven't really changed,
have they? Again, read what Paul says here.
Verse 14, I thank God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius,
for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. People
are arguing over complicated things and trying to outdo each
other with complicated speech. Yet Paul says here he didn't
preach with wisdom or words. He preached with plain words.
He was humble. He delivered his sermons in a
modest manner. He wasn't trying to be exalted.
He wasn't looking to show off. He was just a tent maker, just
telling the Gentiles about what Jesus did for him, what he did
for him on behalf of his people. That's it. Pretty simple. But the world's not satisfied
with that. Men's minds are entertained and their ears are tickled by
the wisdom of eloquent men. They were fascinated with men
with eloquent speech. These men who don't believe the
gospel, who don't care about the gospel. They put it aside
and they argue over theology, so they say. Well, it's dead
theology because there's no gospel. It's like arguing about how the
deck chairs ought to be arranged on the sinking Titanic. And yet
they'll make a show of things and claim to have unity with
each other because they subscribe to this creed or that creed.
They cloud the real issue, Christ. And the simplicity of Christ
is lost. And they replace human wisdom for the precious gift
of faith. And they rest in their own knowledge
and are proud about what they think they know. They think that
because they can answer catechism without notes, they're saved. But it's not what you know, it's
who you know. They don't know Christ, and thus they have a
false unity. Like those early believers who
continued daily with one accord in the temple, breaking bread
from house to house, and ate their food with gladness and
singleness of heart, May God be pleased to let that be us. Let us praise the Lord together.
May the Lord be pleased to add to our church daily, as should
be saved. He's got a scattered elect out
there, his precious sheep. We don't know who they are, but
without the gospel, why would they ever join us? Why would
those sheep come in here? It's why every week we must continue
to get up here and preach Christ and Him crucified. I can get
advice on how to run my life anywhere else. But the gospel of Christ's salvation,
that's something special. And you can only find it amongst
His people. Verse 24, but unto them which are called both Jews
and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness
of God is stronger than men. For you see, your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble, are called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty. And base things of the world and things which are
despised hath God chosen. yea, and things which are not,
to bring to naught things that are. I'd implore everybody here
tonight to continue in the foolishness of God. Don't you like being
one of the foolish things of this world? I'm a fool for Christ. The wise men of this world, with
all their fancy degrees, all their science, all their wisdom,
all their universities, they look at me and they laugh. What's
this idiot up here talking about? This Christ? That's some fairytale
nonsense, they say. But to me, it's real. The Lord's
opened my eyes unto the truth. I've been stripped of my self-righteousness
and seen my need for rightness before God that exceeds that
of even the Pharisees. And I know this only by his grace. and nobody can know this lest
it be given to them. They can't know it unless it's
been revealed. When Peter said to Jesus, you are the Christ,
the son of the living God, Jesus said to him, blessed are you,
Simon, this was not revealed to you by man, but by my father
in heaven. Let this message of salvation
be our theme. Let it be what binds us together.
Let it be our unity. Let's not get caught up with
rules, canon law, creeds or confessions, mere external differences. But
what unites us is this message of grace, this gospel of Christ
Jesus. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful
to you. for this message of grace. Father,
that you brought it to us when we weren't even looking for you.
You came out and you found us. You found us in the gutter, dead
in trespasses and sins, unable to even lift a finger and help
ourselves up. But you came and you scooped
us up at the bottom of the ocean. We were dead and drowned and
you breathed life into us and you gave us the ability to see
who you are. You washed us in the blood of
Christ. You put on us robes of righteousness,
and now we stand before you completely perfect in your sight tonight.
Father, it's so good to know that we are not condemned, no
matter what we do, no sin that we can perform that would separate
us from your love. And Father, we know you've got
your scattered sheep out there that still have not yet come
to believe, sheep for whom you've died, sheep for whom you've given
your precious son for and who were given to your son before
the foundation of the world. Father, we ask that at your point
of time, through your will, your purpose, that you would bring
them to belief. You know who they are, and Father, we look
forward to meeting them. Father, I'd ask that you go be
with us throughout this week. Father, that you would mend our
hearts, or knit our hearts together in love. Father, that we would
Remember that we're brothers and sisters based on Christ and
based on what you've done and not anything that we do. Father,
we thank you for all things. We ask that you bless our time
and you bless our travels this week. And Father, I'd ask that
you give traveling mercies to our brother Jim and sister Nancy,
that they would be protected as they travel. And Father, I
also ask that you give comfort to all those who are suffering
trials and tribulations and afflictions. You know their names. We don't
know them. We don't know them all. We know some of them, but
so many of them are suffering and having a hard way to go.
I ask that you comfort them at this time. And we thank you for
your mercy and your grace in Christ Jesus. Amen. I've got you. you