Our Failed Witness - The Broken Church

We've been talking about Satan's tricks to divide us and ruin our witness this week.  The other trick Satan uses to dampen the church’s effectiveness is to influence us to badmouth other churches.

Paul wrote, "There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift [Eph 4:4-7 (ESV)].

Jesus has one Church that crosses all manmade divides.

Yet we have temporarily divided over the worst things.  Everything from gender, race, our nation, and for the past five hundred years, denominations.  Every denomination has a doctrine, usually a right teaching, that they just will not budge on.  For the brotherhood I am in, that has been adult believer baptism.  I have even heard people go so far as to rebaptize people because the right words were not uttered over them when they were baptized.  If Jesus wanted a specific phrase to be uttered, it would have been consistently and clearly presented throughout the Scriptures.  We serve a gracious God who honors the act of baptism, whether a person is doing it out of obedience or because they believe it is an act of salvation.  The heart is what matters.  A heart circumcised to the lord.

“And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” Deut 30:6 (ESV)

Are we eager to maintain unity, are we trying to be tuned to God?  Or are we antagonistic, wanting to fight, looking for opportunities to divide?  If we are looking for unity, we will find things to unify over.  If we are looking for division, we will find things to divide over.  We see what we are looking.  Paul taught that we are to approach one another with humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love?  That's not too divisive, nor is it too American.  I have been raised from birth as an American to be bold, brave, and fight for my freedom and rights.  But as citizens in the kingdom of God, we’re called to be humble, gentle, patient, and bear with one another in love.
 
Is that how we live in our houses, in our workplaces, in our social activities? 

Even within our own churches, do we let people lead there ministries, encourage them to follow God and do their best, or do we tear them down?  We might be in the same church, but that does not guarantee that we are unified.  Two cats with their tails tied to each other and be hung over a clothesline; they might be together but that does not mean they are unified.

Dwight L. Moody taught, “There are two ways of being united -- one is by being frozen together, and the other is by being melted together. What Christians need is to be united in brotherly love, and then they may expect to have power.” (Moody’s Anecdotes, pg. 53)

May we be united together.  If you take a bunch of loose gold ore, melt it together, and let a master craftsman shape it, you will have beautiful gold jewelry for the world to see.  May people see us, united together and not help but recognize the Master Craftsman who has shaped us into who we are.  May people see Jesus when they see our love for one another.

Christ is not Divided - A Discussion on Essentials (Part Two)

We know God’s people, not by them agreeing with us hook, line and sinker on every issue we believe.

One thing I love about the Church of Christ/Christian Churches is our heritage.  Early on, one of the driving statements of our movement was the traditional church statement, “In essentials, unity.  In opinions, liberty.  In all things, love.”  We were the first non-denominational movement in the world, and now non-denominational churches are the fastest growing churches in the land.  The problem is that we have strayed from being non-denominational into being a denomination.  Some people in the Church of Christ will not even accept the non-denominational churches as being on the right track because they are not non-denominational the way we are.

Some of us have become more sectarian than the sectarianism of the denominations our movement was founded to free the church from.  We claim to have no book but the Bible as our guideline for fellowship and the faith, but we all too often place our interpretations of pet Scriptures or even beliefs that are not even expressed in Scripture as issues of fellowship.  In denominational churches, they typically have handbooks that describe what the church believes, what it requires to be a leader in the church, and how people in the church should live.  We have no handbook outside of Scripture, but all too often, we have erred in making unwritten, ever-changing handbooks, a handbook just as legalistic as those in the denominations, except we are not transparent about them and people do not know what is expected of them.

Our conviction at our church is to no longer be that way.  We want to be non-denominational, not anti-denominational.  There is a big difference.  Anti-denominational people think that people in denominations cannot be right with God because they are in a denomination.  Non-denominational means that we choose to be locally led, but we don’t hate denominations.  Through non-denominational lenses we do not see the man-made lines we have created.  Non-denominational people do not get hung up with denominational names and view each person as an individual, right with God based upon their own faithfulness to Him and not on their church affiliation. Condemning people in other churches and dividing over the names we use to call ourselves is so contrary to Scripture.

Paul actually had to deal with this in the Corinthian church.

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.”  Is Christ divided?   [1 Cor 1:10-13 (ESV)].

Let’s put it in modern words.

For it has been reported to me by people on Facebook that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Luther,” or “I follow Wesley,” or “I follow Calvin,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided?  [not 1 Cor 1:10-13 (ESV)].

I wish I was as faithful at following Jesus as Luther or as Wesley.  They were great Christians, faithful to the point of selflessness.  I understand why people thought they were on the right track on how to follow Jesus and desired to follow Jesus the way Luther or Wesley did.  And if we are honest with ourselves and study the history of the Restoration Movement, we follow Jesus in the same vein as Alexander Campbell followed Jesus, although we might not have ever read him, really don't even know about him, nor do we call ourselves Campbellites.  We should not be arrogant or look down on others who follow Jesus differently because they come from a different heritage; we come from a heritage that has taught us how to study Scriptures and follow Jesus the way we do.. 

Paul concluded his section on division in the early chapter in Corinthian by stating:

So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.  [1 Cor 3:21-23 (ESV)].

All are Christ’s.  Even those who follow him like Paul, Apollos, Cephas, Luther, Calvin, or Wesley – Christ is not divided.  We need to stop quarreling among ourselves and with our brothers and sisters in Christ in other churches because bickering destroys our witness to the world.,  We need to have the heart of Jesus and figure out how we can serve one another.  In order to do this, we need to clearly understand the essentials that we are willing to divide over.

More tomorrow.

For further reading:
A Discussion on Essentials (Part One)