Go to Acts chapter 15. Normally, we like to preach. a book at a time and so we've preached a number of books over the years and for some reason I don't often choose short books. I choose longer ones and we spend years in them. But right now we're doing something different. We're going through this series called Church Blueprints and so we've been jumping around to different passages talking about different topics that are relevant to the church and the formation of the church, how the church is governed, what ought to be the purposes of the church and on and on and on. all about the church. So it's a series we're doing on that topic, and today we come to Acts chapter 15, and I'm going to read for us, beginning in verse 36. Acts chapter 15 and verse 36, this is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. And after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are." Now, Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark, but Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." Let's pray. Father, we pause this morning to come before you together one more time. We have your word open before us. We have our own needs in our minds. We have our own weaknesses that plague us. We have our own concerns. We pray that in these next few minutes you would help us to be all here, to be focused on your word, to be focused on what we can learn about this topic of distinctions within the church, distinctiveness of the local church. We pray that you would be honored, and we pray that you would work in our hearts and strengthen us even now. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. The reason we are covering this topic of church distinctives, we have a number of motives in mind for that. But it's an important topic. When I am in discussion with LDS missionaries, as happens from time to time, they actually came to my door the other day. I thought they were avoiding me, but they came to my door. and it was dinner time and so I didn't talk to them then, but I got their number and we'll call them back, etc. But when you talk to the LDS missionaries, one of the things that they bring up, one of the things that's of great concern to them that indicates to them there's something wrong with the Protestant church is how many denominations there are. Are you concerned about how many denominations there are? I would encourage you to… It's not encouraging, so no, I wouldn't. There are thousands and they multiply. And we might hear that and we think, wow, that really is a weakness of the Protestant church that we just seem to fracture. We might have that same concern ourselves. We might think that actually it's the church failing in some way and perhaps that is only a weakness of the church and it's going to be the downfall of the church or thoughts along those lines. But today I want to talk about that issue and address it from this passage and from some others to point out that sometimes The fracturing that happens is purely ridiculous, whether it's over money or simple things that don't really matter. Two pastors couldn't get along and so they split and formed a different church or formed a different denomination or on and on. Yes, there are a number of those times, perhaps even the vast majority, I might venture to guess, where those sorts of divisions are ridiculous divisions that could have been avoided if there were less sin involved, less selfishness, less ego. So I don't defend the great number of divisions and different denominations within the church. But there are times, and our passage today is going to point us to a time where There are legitimate reasons for groups of Christians or a group of Christians to separate and go different directions. There are good reasons for there to be distinctives within individual churches, within individual denominations. That it is not purely the result of our sin. It is not purely the result of some kind of ego trip or power trip or something like that, there are times where certain types of distinctions are important. And we want to talk about some of those. And so we come to this passage, it's hard to talk about this topic of distinctions and divisions and things like that without thinking about this great missionary team that was split up here in Acts chapter 15. Just to kind of bring us back up to speed, maybe you've not read the book of Acts for a while, but starting back in chapter 13 of the book of Acts, the Spirit of God, who was working in the church in Antioch in Syria, told the church leaders there to set apart Paul and Barnabas for a particular work God had called them to. We call it Paul's First Missionary Journey. And it's detailed in 13 and 14. And it takes Paul and Barnabas, who turns out they're a great missionary duo. And God does amazing things. They set apart. They set off from Antioch in Syria. They go to Cyprus, the island that is right there. They do work in Cyprus, then they go up by ship into Perga on the coast of Asia Minor, and then inland to Antioch of Pisidia, and then to Iconium, and then to Lystra, where Paul was stoned. And then back out, they retrace their steps, and they go back to their home church in Syrian Antioch. And during that trip, miracles were performed. God did amazing things. The Gospel was proclaimed far and wide to great reception. Many were saved. Churches were planted. God had used this team in this moment to sow the seeds that would eventually lead to the evangelization of the known world in that day. What a team! What a team these two were! God had done amazing things through them, and they came back to their hometown, they took care of business for a while, and after a while, we get to what we read in our passage today. Verse 36, after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, they've been back in Syrian Antioch for a while, back in their home church, ministering in different ways. We've just had the Jerusalem Council take place and dealing with large theological issues that had impact on the church. And now Paul says, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. We led all these people to Christ. We preached the gospel in all these different places. People came to Christ and churches were planted. Let's go back and strengthen them. Let's go back and check on them. Let's go back and see how they're doing." Paul is proposing a second missionary journey. He's proposing to get the dynamic duo back together again, and so he pitches that to Barnabas. But there arose a difference between the two. Look at verse 37. Now Barnabas wanted to take with him John, called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work." You see, Mark had been a part of that previous team. We read most about Paul and Barnabas. They're the main ones doing the preaching and the evangelizing and the church planting and all that stuff. But Mark was there with them. At least he set out with them. He made it to Cyprus, ministered with them through Cyprus. But then when they sailed north and they got to Asia Minor, he couldn't take it. And he bailed on them. He backed out. We see that in 13 and 13 of Acts. Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John, John Mark, left them and returned to Jerusalem, partway through the mission, before it's done. Actually, it's just begun. They hit one island. They start moving on to the next work, and that's when John Mark says, I'm out. And he bails, goes back to Jerusalem. And because of that, Barnabas wants to take him along. It seems like Barnabas, whose name means son of encouragement, it seems like he wanted to encourage him. Wanted to encourage Mark, wanted to build him back up, wanted to restore him, not just to fellowship, but to usefulness in the ministry. Maybe even self-confidence that he had started off on the first journey and then bailed after not too long. And maybe Barnabas was saying, well, let's go a little bit farther this time. Let's develop some endurance. You can do this. I don't know. Barnabas wanted to take Mark with him. Paul, however, had a different view. He thought it best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. He backed out, Paul says. It's best for the mission that we not take someone who's going to bail on us. He has a history of doing so. and we're retracing our steps, what's going to happen when we sail up to Perga and Pamphylia again and he sees, oh, this is where I walked down the dock and that's where I got on the ship and that's where I left last time? Might he not just bail again? Paul is thinking about the mission. He's thinking about what needs to be accomplished. And what is that that's being accomplished? The gospel being proclaimed. Churches being planted. Christians being strengthened. That's what Paul's thinking about. But Barnabas keeps looking at Mark and thinking, I think we need to take him. Paul says, no way. And there arises a disagreement between them. Barnabas was not willing to go without John Mark. Paul was not willing to go with John Mark. You can't have it both ways. So, with that difference of opinion we see in verse 39, crisis moment, there arose a sharp disagreement. There arose a sharp disagreement. Now, we read that, we've talked about this passage not long ago. But in understanding this passage, it's important for us to realize that the Greek word that's used here, is the same Greek word that is used in Hebrews 10, 24, and 25. Do you remember Hebrews 10, 24, and 25? Do not forsake the assembling together, right? We are to consider how to spur one another on. Let us consider how to do this word to one another. to stimulate one another to love and good works. So I ask you, is this Greek word that's being used here, does it mean squabble? So we read here in Acts chapter 15 and we see that Paul and Barnabas, I thought they were more mature than this, here they are squabbling amongst themselves. Seems pretty immature. I wonder which one was sinning. I wonder if they were both sinning. I wonder what was going on. We read it as if it's squabble, but let's take that idea of squabble over to Hebrews 10, 24, and 25, where it says we are to consider how to do something to one another so that good works and love come from it. Does that mean squabble? Is that the way we encourage each other? To obey the Lord? I'm going to pick a fight with Rick because I don't think he's obeying the Lord, and so he and I are going to squabble about it. Of course not, right? But it does have the idea of a provocation that if Rick and I are in this disagreement with one another, if I see that he's being lackadaisical in some way and he needs to be spurred on to love and good works, my coming against him and talking to him about these issues is a little bit of a provocation. It's pushing him off of his place of comfort. There's this provocation, and it might have big emotional outcomes, if this goes poorly between Rick and me. We'll tell you later how it goes, by the way. It could have big emotional outcome, but it doesn't have to. I'm not going after him, and he's not going to respond by fighting with me, and yet we obeyed Hebrews 10, 24 and 25, which means obeying this word. And so, looking back here, We see that it doesn't have to be a fight, and I don't think that's what's going on here between Paul and Barnabas. There was this conflict. One said, I'm not going without Mark, and the other said, I'm not going with Mark. How do you resolve that? How do you resolve that? Well, it's resolved by them separating from one another. There arose a sharp disagreement so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark, Paul took Silas, etc. So the result of this conflict, the result of this moment where they have pushed against each other, there has been provocation one to the other. There's been a standing of ground and saying, I'm not going with that guy. He's going to sink the whole mission, says Paul. And Barnabas says, I'm not going without Him because He needs to be ministered to. And they can't agree, can't decide. They're not fighting with one another, but they see things very, very differently, and so they part ways. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. It's almost like Mark is thinking, we're gonna retrace these steps, and when you come to that, Barnabas is thinking, when we come to that point of your weakness, Mark, we are gonna power through this and you're gonna see that you can stand. The Lord will strengthen you for this difficult task. And we learn later on that that's indeed what happens. Paul will say later of Mark, he's useful to me, he's very helpful. So, he is strengthened through this. But Paul, in this moment, chooses Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. And so, the result, the outcome of what has happened here in this disagreement, shall we proceed with Mark or shall we proceed without? Because we can't do both. Two teams are formed. One team goes to Cyprus and evangelizes there. Barnabas gets to minister to Mark, Mark gets to be restored, Mark gets to be built up and become a useful servant that Paul later on will recognize. And Paul and Silas will go on the second missionary journey and they will go up through Syria and Cilicia and Asia Minor and all that that we read about there and do wonderful things through them. God has used this crossroads to form two teams who then accomplish twice the work. And so, a principle that we might draw from this that's going to help us as we think going forward, some differences between Christians can be the cause for peaceful separation into different groups. Paul and Barnabas weren't fighting, but they had strong opinions about how to proceed. And they resolved the issue, and their resolution meant Barnabas took Mark on his distinctive journey. Paul took Silas on his distinctive journey and God did a powerful work. The encouragement in this is that God in his providence often uses separation of those different groups to advance his kingdom even further. Now you've got two teams of dynamic duos bringing the gospel to the known world. I want to pose for you an illustration, and it's a little bit long, bear with me. Imagine, you don't really have to imagine because you can read it in Scripture, but imagine God has set this church, Parkside, apart for a mission. Of course, we read in the Great Commission, "'Go therefore,' Jesus says, "'and make disciples of all nations, "'baptizing them in the name of the Father "'and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, "'teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. "'And behold, I am with you always.'" He's given us a mission. He's outlined what we are to do. We're to go, we're to make disciples, we're to baptize them, we're to teach them to obey all that He's commanded. He's with us the whole time. That's the mission. Great sermon on that yesterday that we got to hear at the conference I would commend to you. Well, after much discussion, God has given us this mission. After talking about it, after studying, we decide, Parkside decides, how we are to go about pursuing this mission. We decide what we need to do, and we set off to do it. We make preparations, and we're about to leave and go do this mission. All right, you with me? That's what we've been called to. Now, we meet three groups. As we're about to set off, we're about to depart on our mission. We suppose we meet three different groups of people who express interest in wanting to come with us on our mission. These are three different groups. They have distinctive characteristics and we're going to talk about them. But we're about to leave. We're all gathered together. We've got our stuff packed. We're about to head out and execute our plan. And we run into these three groups. The first group is made up of non-Christians. Should we make them our teammates? on this mission God has given us? Should we bring along those who are not even Christians themselves to go and proclaim the Christian message to a dying world? No, these people would be the recipients, the objects, the targets of our ministry. They would not be teammates. They are in no way qualified to make disciples for Jesus because they are not disciples for Jesus. There's a second group we run into. And this group, thankfully, is made up of Christians. They agree with our mission. They have the same mission given to them. They know about it. But the catch is that they believe our plan to accomplish that mission won't work. You can't do it that way. You put together a plan. You thought this is how things should go, but you can't do it that way. That won't work. They're convinced the mission needs to be done another way. Well, after a long time of studying and discussing and writing blog articles and writing books about this topic, and after a long time of working through this, we determined we can't resolve these two different points of view. We're Christians, we in this other group, we even have the same mission, we in this other group, but we see very different ways that it must be accomplished, ways that don't work together. We realize we can't resolve the issue, and though we share all of that in common, our plans for how to go about accomplishing it are incompatible and irreconcilable. Well, in the end, our group and theirs wish one another well and depart in friendship, working in parallel to accomplish the mission that God has given us, the way each group thinks best. That's the second group. There's a third group. This group shares our mission, praise God. They're genuine Christians too, praise God. They even agree with the ways we have in mind to accomplish the mission. They hear our plan, they say, wow, sounds like a great plan. Let's do that plan. The one difference between us and them is that this group insists on wearing Scottish kilts as they go. Don't know why. Don't know what brought them to that conclusion. But that's what they want to do. Now, I'm not into kilts. I wore one at a wedding once and it was very strange. But I still think we should take them along with us. Why not? They're Christians. They have the same mission. They think the way we're going to go about accomplishing it is the way it ought to be done. They just want to wear funny clothes. So, we put our arms around them. We proceed on the mission together. We might occasionally talk about their fashion sensibilities, but we go on mission together and serve together. No. What does this have to do with doctrinal distinctives? It has a lot to do with it. When we talk about doctrine, we know that truth is important. Truth is important. We came to church on a Sunday morning. One of those reasons is because we believe truth is important. But is all truth equally important? That's the question before us. Well, if you would turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 13, excuse me, 1 Corinthians 15, Passage familiar to most of you. Paul here speaking. This is one of the first letters he wrote, by the way, very early on in his ministry. Paul here writing to the church in Corinth, reflecting on his time there and giving them instruction, and boy, did they need instruction. But this is what he says in verse three. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. That He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. And then He continues on about appearances, etc. But look what He said there in verse 3, I deliver to you as of first importance. All truth is important. But all truth does not have necessarily the same level of importance. So, when we think about doctrine, we think in those terms. We think in terms of different orders. I'm going to call it first-order doctrines, second-order doctrines, third-order doctrines, or primary, secondary, and tertiary. But different levels of doctrine. In the primary doctrine, what's that? These are the first order doctrines. This is what Paul said here, I delivered to you as of first importance. You're gonna be learning a lot of things. This is where you start, Paul says. This is the most important of the doctrines that you need to learn. There are certain doctrinal differences. Like in this situation here, the reason he says it is of first importance is because if you don't believe these things, you are not a Christian. You may hold other doctrines in common. You may believe things about the future. You may believe other things about mankind or even about God. But if you don't hold to this, if you don't hold to the gospel, Whatever else you may have in line with Christians, you are not a Christian. That's a first order doctrine. These tell us whether someone believes in Christianity or they believe in something else. Definitional of what it means to be Christian. For example, there's only one God. You can't be a polytheistic Christian. meaning you believe there are multiple gods. You can't be an atheistic Christian believing there is no God and be a Christian. You must believe there is one God. You must believe that that one God is Triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe in the virgin birth, the deity of Christ. We believe in Christ's bodily resurrection. We believe in justification by faith, etc., etc. These are first order doctrines. They are definitional. to what is Christianity. To disbelieve these doctrines is to disbelieve the Christian message. That's of first importance, I would say. Whatever else we may get wrong or right later on, we've got to have those of first importance understood. People who deny these doctrines don't hold to Christianity, and so we are distinct from them. They are the recipients of our mission work, not our partners in it. They need to hear and believe the true gospel. They need to be saved. This group that's distinguished by disagreeing on these first order doctrines, that is that non-Christian group that I mentioned, the first group. brief look at the first-order doctrines or primary doctrines. There are few. They're not extensive, but they're definitional for what it means to be a Christian, first-order doctrines. Well, then, there are also, I'm going to get back to second-order doctrines, but I want to go to the other end of the spectrum and talk about third-order doctrines, tertiary doctrines. These are the ones that are debatable. So, for example, if you turn to Romans 14, verse 3, you'll know already, you who know Romans, that this passage here, Romans 14, is talking about questionable things, things that Christians disagree on a lot. They're not definitional for what it means to be a Christian. They're not so central that Paul would weigh in on them definitively. They're issues that are more peripheral. I call them third-order doctrines. And so we read in, for example, we're talking about here in Romans 14 and verse 3, talking about eating of meat, sacrifice to idols. You see, some people said, that's tainted meat. That's spiritually tainted meat. I can't eat that. I can't do that as a Christian. I can't eat that meat that was sacrificed to some false god, sacrificed to some demon. I can't do that. Others look at the same meat and they say, it's just meat and God sanctifies it. I don't really care about the other spiritual things that might have happened while the meat was being slaughtered. I'm going to eat it. No big deal. It doesn't bother my conscience. It doesn't dishonor the Lord. Okay, so that's what's going on. You've got these people who disagree on this topic of whether they should eat meat sacrificed to idols. Paul says in 14.3, "'Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains. Let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.'" In other words, Paul is saying there are certain things that you might read differently, you might take a different position on it. He's talking primarily about these sort of moral issues of meat sacrifice to idols, but it applies in other ways. He's saying, don't even look funny at each other. This is not a cause for any kind of division amongst brothers or anything like that. Be sensitive to the guy who won't eat the meat sacrifice to idols. It bothers his conscience. Don't rub it in. Don't make fun of him. Don't belittle him. Likewise, you who abstain, don't be looking down on the guy who ate it as if he's some kind of sinner, judging him because he ate this meat. No! You can coexist together and learn to do it with grace toward one another on this issue. It's not a big deal. It is a third order doctrine. And these kinds of disagreements on these third order issues happen all the time. There's no need for there to be any cause for division, separation. You don't need to form a separate team. You don't need to swim in different lanes. Nothing like that. And I would put in this category doctrines like eschatology. I think the Bible teaches on eschatology. I have views on eschatology and others have views on eschatology. Okay, we can talk about those, but it doesn't mean there needs to be a distinction between you and me. It doesn't mean I need to force you into another lane or we need to come to the conclusion we can't proceed together. I don't believe that at all. Same thing with women's head coverings. We haven't really talked about that much at this church, but there is a teaching that women should have their head covered in church. There's a teaching that says women should have their head covered always. Right? Well, Christians have different views on that. Okay. If you want to wear a head covering, okay. Not a problem. Third order issue. Another one. Who are the Nephilim in Genesis 6? I was so tempted to spend time on that when I preached through it. So tempted. I didn't want to waste pulpit time talking about something that's pretty speculative and it doesn't really matter, right? People holding these different views in these types of areas can joyfully be members of the same church. They can join together and pull together and work together and be together in the same church, in the same ministry, in the same office, pulling forward, working together. Those are third-order issues, right? So if the guy wants to wear a kilt to come on our mission, Okay, we might talk about kilts occasionally, but it doesn't stop him from preaching the gospel, it doesn't stop him from working together with us and accomplishing that mission. There's no reason to separate from that guy just because you don't like kilts or just because he does or anything like that. It's a third-order issue. But between these two doctrines, between these two categories of doctrines are what we might call second-order doctrines or secondary issues. Now, why is it important that we have three levels of doctrines? It's not because of the Trinity. It doesn't have anything to do with the Trinity or anything like that. But I've been asked the question before on an issue that I disagreed with this person on. Do you think this is a primary doctrine? Or is this just a secondary issue? And I thought about that. Well, of course it's not primary, it's not definitional, this agreement that I was having with this man. It's not definitional of what it means to be a Christian. We can disagree on this particular doctrine and still both be Christians. We don't have to call each other non-Christians. We don't have to cast dispersions at each other. So it's not primary. But if we only have two categories, that causes us a problem. Because if we only have primary and secondary, doesn't secondary really kind of mean irrelevant, debatable, and who really cares? If we only have two categories for doctrine and the level of importance of each, we're going to get ourselves into trouble. Because there are two ways that we can go about this. Either we can say only primary doctrines matter, don't even bring up secondary stuff. Well, secondary stuff is a lot of stuff. And so what we're doing is we're saying these things matter, these particular doctrines matter, everything that's outside of these definitional doctrines of what it means to be a Christian doesn't matter, keep your mouth shut about it. That's a problem. We've seen that take place in the last 150 years in liberalism. Because you let everything else go, and we don't preach doctrine on anything besides what's essential. And the problem is, pretty soon, this essential thing, that gets pretty big too, and that excludes somebody, so let's remove one of those elements. And now, what's essential is a little bit smaller, and, oh, we didn't want to exclude these guys either, and so we remove another element, and pretty soon, what we believe is really, really true and most important, and the only thing we can preach, is next to nothing. We've excluded everything else, we end up in liberalism. It may be a slow path, it may be a quick one. That's the direction it goes. That's one problem with having only two categories of primary and secondary doctrine. Another problem is for those who look at primary and secondary and they say, well, this is definitional for Christianity, but this other stuff's really important too. And what they do is they practically begin to include it as if it were all primary. All of it is primary, and if you disagree with me on one of these issues, you're outside the fold. Because it's all important. It's all God's truth, and all truth is important. And if you disagree with me on this issue, since it's all essential, you're on the outs. And some will even say you're not a Christian. See, they expand that idea of what is definitional for Christianity. They expand primary to cover the secondary also. Well, they're drawing a tighter and tighter circle around themselves, right? And so you end up with churches who think that no other denomination are even Christians. So it's important that we not only have two categories, Because there is a difference between what is definitional for Christianity, and we have a category for things like eating meat sacrificed to idols. Have your opinion about that, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't bother the fact that you and I can evangelize together, we can pray together, we can join the church together, we can pastor together, we can do those things, we can work together. So there's... There's a category of doctrine that's…it's not that it's irrelevant, God's Word talks about it, we need to have an opinion about it, but it's so debatable and it's so far from the center that we're going to call it tertiary. But the group in the middle is the more difficult group for us to work through. Doctrines that are not primary, not definitive for Christianity. If you disbelieve these doctrines, we're not saying you're not a Christian, but they are still significant enough that they create certain boundaries between Christians, like the example we saw with Paul and Barnabas. You don't record Paul later on saying, and that's when Barnabas left the faith. You don't have Barnabas spewing vitriol at Paul because he was such a non-Christian, he didn't even want Mark to go with him. No. But it was an important issue, wasn't it? Do we go with Mark or do we go without Mark? Two options. So this is obviously that second group that's above. These are genuine Christians on the same mission. Genuine Christians on the same mission, but they have some serious disagreements about how we ought to accomplish that mission. So much so that we can't partner in the same mission group. I was trying to think of a good example of this kind of mission. And I don't know that it's a great example, but there are mission organizations and even churches that think the way to evangelize a country is to move into their city, their cities, and invest your entire ministry and life in those cities. Okay, that may be a fine missiological plan. There are other missions, organizations, and churches that say, we dare not overlook the rural areas. These little churches that have 20 members, they can hardly afford to pay a pastor part-time. We need to invest our efforts solely on those and grow those. We need to make sure they get good education, they get good support. Okay, that may be a fine missiological plan, But you can't focus only in the rural areas and only in the cities. What are some examples of doctrines that differ in these ways? Maybe it's the proper mode and recipients of baptism. Are we going to baptize infants or are we going to baptize believers only? Because you can't really do both. There are churches that try it. I think it's not going to work out for very long. Because there are two very different philosophies about how to accomplish the mission God has given you. So, you can't be a church that says, yes, we believe in infant baptism, with the same weight that you say, yes, we believe only in believer's baptism. You can't do that. Some churches may try. Maybe church polity is another issue. What ought to be the structure, the authority structure of the church? Is it going to be elder-led? Or is it going to be congregational? Who gets the final say? Who's going to vote? Are the elders going to vote? Or is the congregation going to vote? You can't have it both ways where it's only the elders or only the congregation. Church polity might be an issue, maybe women elders. You can't have elders that believe that women ought to be elders alongside elders who believe that, no, that office is only for qualified men. You've got to make a decision on those things eventually, right, or the persistence of the miraculous gifts. These are the distinctions and the differences that usually give rise to denominations or different churches. You can see why. Are we going to baptize infants or are we only going to baptize believers? Pick your pony. There are reasons to do so. It's not just flipping a coin, but you eventually have to come to a decision and follow that one. And when you do, it will lead you away from the other one. And so it would be better for you to pursue your mission in parallel lanes with one another. So as with the middle group above, we love these brothers and sisters. They're Christians, we're Christians, and we share the same mission, and we wish them well in their pursuit of their chosen route. We're going to pursue our chosen route. And so we swim in separate lanes. So what's the application? Well, it applies in every church. First of all, with this first group, the ones that showed up and wanted to join us on mission, maybe they want to come and join the church and they're not Christians. They want to come and participate but they don't know Jesus. What do we do with those people? Well, we share the gospel with them. We evangelize them. We talk to them about what it means to be a Christian. There's such confusion about what it means to be a Christian in the world that it's as if we signed up for this group and we decided to agree together that we're going to act in these ways. That makes us a Christian. Like we've joined a club, like we've joined an organization. To be a Christian is a spiritual reality where we have come to realize we are sinful people. before a holy God who has every right to judge us. He's our Creator. He's holy and righteous. His standard is perfection, and here we are. Now, we may compare each other with one another and think we're doing all right. But the fact is, usually we don't. Usually we realize even in comparing with one another or comparing with my own internal standard, I don't even meet my own standard, much less the standard God has set of perfection. We're sinful people. We must have redemption from the outside. We can't climb our way out of that. An oily rag can't wipe itself into being a clean rag. And that's how we are. And so, the Father sent His Son, who was born as one of us, Jesus, who lived righteously. No oiliness, no dirt, no smudge. Perfect righteousness living in this life. Completely different than us. Yet one of us. And then He went to the cross. The place of God's judgment upon sin. And He stood there, bearing the wrath of God, not because He deserved it, but because He was standing there for me. to bear God's wrath for my sin, to bear God's wrath for the sin of anyone who would put their faith in Christ. And when we put our faith in Christ, when we realize this whole thing that left to myself, I deserve judgment and will receive judgment, I must have God save me. When I put my faith in Christ and I trust in what He did, That's when God says, you are forgiven, my child. He places within us a new heart, makes us alive, gives us a new record as if we had always obeyed. No sin present, it's gone, completely changed. We're made His children. And now our expectation is not judgment from God, but eternal peace and bliss with God in His presence as His child. That's what it means to be a Christian. And so when these come to join us and want to go on our mission with us, that's what they need to hear. They need to come to faith in Christ themselves so that they will indeed be Christians. This third group, what's the application for the church for the third group? Without reservation, we welcome those who disagree on these third order issues. without any kind of reservation. We'll still talk about those things from time to time. If the Bible teaches on it, we're gonna talk about it. So don't think that just because it's not a primary or a secondary issue, we'll never talk about it. If the Bible does, we will. But our fellowship and pursuit of the Great Commission together is not hindered in any way by those discussions or those disagreements. Wear the kilt if you want. We're going on mission together, arm in arm. What about this second group? Well, as a church, we hold to our positions on second-order doctrines. Distinctives. What is distinct about our church from other churches? Well, first of all, we are and always have been a Baptist church. It's not in our name. A lot of people don't like the name, When I say we are a Baptist church, I mean we believe in and teach believers' baptism only, as we saw today. We are a Baptist church, not a paedo-Baptist church. We don't believe in baptizing infants. We believe in baptizing believers. That is one of our distinctives. We've always been a Baptist church, because we've never believed in baptizing infants or those who are not believers. We are an elder-led church that allows only qualified men to hold that position and perform its function. We believe the sign gifts have ceased, and we will teach that as truth. We believe in the doctrines of grace, that God is sovereign in salvation from beginning to end, and all that entails. We believe that. We've taught that. We will continue to teach that. These are the distinctives of our church. Now, you might be sitting out there thinking, well, some of those things I disagreed with. Some of those secondary issues I disagreed with. I'm with you on the primaries of the gospel, and I realize we're not really talking about the tertiary stuff, and so we've got my views there, and okay. But the secondary stuff, maybe you disagree on the secondary stuff. We are happy to welcome you into fellowship. We are happy to welcome into fellowship and membership at Parkside genuine Christians who believe differently on these issues, these secondary issues. But as we do so, we do so with the understanding from you that there will be no effort to undermine the church's teaching. This is, after all, our doctrinal distinctive. being a Baptist church, for example, preaching the doctrines of grace, for example. You may believe differently, but those who are content to listen to our teaching on these secondary issues, though you hold a different opinion, though you believe differently on that topic than we do, these people are more than welcome to join us and we would love to have you as members, full members. So there's definitely application for the church in thinking about these three orders of doctrine. But there's application to us as individuals as well. This isn't just something for Stephen and me to talk about. Each of us needs to have a grasp of what is most important, what is secondary, and what's debatable. We need to have clear in our mind those distinctions. What is essential, what is secondary, and what is debatable. And when we do that, When we do that, we become less defensive. We become more open to conversation. We become more open to disagreement. Okay, I'm not threatened if someone comes to me with an opposing view. If their opposing view says that Jesus isn't God, well, I'm not threatened, but I also know the conversation is on a different level because we're talking about a primary issue. Well, we can discuss these other things. I'm happy to talk about those things. But for us, there is application in that understanding the difference between what is definitional, what is distinctive, and what is debatable. Having that clear in your mind allows you to relax in conversation with each other, allows you to relax in theological discussion or listening to a sermon. Oh, no, he might say something about God's sovereignty and salvation. It's okay. We can have that disagreement. I'm going to preach it because it's a distinctive of our church. I believe it. But we can disagree on that. The agreement, however, is that there won't be some sort of forming a coalition of those who disagree with that and trying to undermine it in some way, which I don't suspect, I don't expect, but I just want to be clear about that, that those who have those distinctions different from the church, you're welcome here. You are welcome to membership here, full membership. We want you here. We're Christians together. We're on the same mission together. Let's proceed together." And so, it's disconcerting sometimes when people will, maybe will point out or the news will point out or maybe an LDS missionary or somebody will point out all of these denominations and it is problematic. But sometimes, sometimes those differences and those different denominations are rooted in distinctives like this that are important. And it's good for a church to have these distinctives. It is good for a church to believe, to know what they believe, and to teach what they believe on these issues. But to do so, recognizing they are secondary. There is a primary category. The secondary is not unimportant either. There are some differences between Christians that can be the cause for peaceful separation into different groups. And remember the story from Mark and Paul and Barnabas, how God in his providence used that very disagreement about how to go about the mission to double the efforts and double the fruit. God is providentially at work, and we are not ashamed of having doctrinal distinctives. It is something God uses to bless and grow the kingdom of God, and may He do so by means of us. Let's pray together. Father, we have covered a lot of ground in a lot of doctrines. Thank you that there is such a thing as a truth that is of first importance. And to that we cling tenaciously. Those truths of the gospel about who you are and how man can know you, we cling tenaciously with a death grip. And even those doctrines which are not that primary, and yet they are related to, they are derived from, they are significant in Scripture, they have to do with how we will go about mission, they have to do with how we will do church, with very important topics. Though not primary, yet they are crucial, important. Father, we pray that you would help us to think rightly and well on these topics, to teach them well, to be gracious with one another where there is disagreement even on these things. And Father, certainly we pray that in this third category that you would give us grace with one another. If someone wants to wear a kilt or eat meat sacrificed to idols, okay, not a problem. Father, you have blessed us. You have blessed us by clear teaching from Your Word about what is essential for our salvation. You have blessed us by teaching from Your Word how we are to proceed on this mission. What is the church to be like? What is this salvation like? How ought we to proclaim it? How are we to understand it? We thank You for that. The clarity of Your Word gives us hope, gives us light. Father, we are thankful most of all for Jesus, our Savior, who gave Himself for us that we might have life. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. There will be a family up front to pray with you, but you might have difficulty finding them because of the 10 or so people who will be standing up front who are members. Please come by and greet them and welcome them and hug them and get to know them. I would encourage you to do that. So members, new members, come on up for that. Otherwise, God bless you all. See you tonight for prayer time and you are dismissed.