Assorted | Baptist Distinctives Matter

If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it and turn to the book of John. To the book of John. We're going to be looking at John chapter 3. Now, you may remember several months ago we went through a topical series on the church.

There was one more topical sermon I wished I could give, but I didn't have space if I wanted to finish the book of Genesis. And what happened last Sunday was that I realized that the texts that were set up for two different sermons actually worked better together as one sermon, which opened up a slot. So consider this like a little PS note or an epilogue or an after credits blurb at the end of that Church Matters series. This is the last talk I wish I could give or the last sermon that I wish I could give on why Baptist distinctives matter.

Why Baptist Distinctives Matter

Why we're Baptist. You can see in John chapter three, I just want to read to you John chapter 3 verse 1 to 4 and I'll pray 1 to 5.

There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.” Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

— John 3:1-5 (CSB)

Let's pray. We pray as we think about this final talk and sermon on church matters that you would help us to see your glory displayed in the life of this church. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

I do find this to be a fitting sermon topic, given that we are currently celebrating, I believe, the 78th anniversary of our church's life this Sunday. In 1948, on October 17th, the church members here gathered and covenanted together to form First Baptist Church of Artesia. We advertised ourselves to this community as the new church with the old gospel that we sought to be faithful to the word and to what it said about salvation as well as what it said about the life of the church here in this place, ministering to this city of Artesia. You may think that this may be a really weird topic to talk about on a Sunday sermon.

After all, nowadays, it may seem like talking about why your Baptist may be the least of your worries in life right now. The least of your concerns in terms of what it means to be faithful to Jesus. You look at all the divisions that are happening in the church. People getting caught up in petty arguments online.

Or seeing the advance of atheism or secularism, or so much immorality happening in the world. Are you really going to give a talk about why your First Baptist Church of Artesia? Maybe you're an odd, peculiar man who gets really jazzed at the thought of talking about church polity.

Or maybe you're not upset, but you think in the back of your head, maybe even just a little bit, does this stuff really matter? Are we just humoring Pastor John behind the pulpit like you would as you listen to an insufferable Dodger fan yap about baseball? In which case, that's you, number one. I'm sorry for your loss. Second, I'm glad that we have Jesus in common. I just want to concede on the outset that there's a degree to which that feeling's correct.

that the gospel that we share with all Christians for all of human history is more important than the differences that we have. So if you listen to a sermon like this and you walk away thinking that we ought to be a church that's known primarily for the disagreements that we have with other Christians. If you think what we should be is people that sit back on our Baptist lazy boys as we critique other Christians and the way that they live their lives, I think that's a wrong attitude to have. We want to be known first and foremost for the devotion that we have to the Lord.

At the same time, I also want to persuade you this morning that the reason Baptist distinctives matter, the reason it matters that we're Baptist, isn't because we're First Baptist, even though our heritage is pretty rich. It's not because it's the coolest. Baptist is not cool anymore. I know plenty of Baptist churches that joke with me; literally, I had a pastor joke with me.

He planted a church, Baptist isn't in the name, and he winked at me. He said, "The Baptist is silent." Fads come and go, but because I believe that being Baptist, the things that make us Baptist and distinguish us are actually part of the natural reverberations of believing the very gospel that you and I care so much about. If you've listened to all the sermons we gave about why the church matters, you would understand that the gospel is the diamond, but the church are the prongs that hold it.

That it actually helps display the gospel. That the reason why we care about the way that you and I do church is because we care about the gospel message. And I want to argue. I want to try to persuade you this morning that the things that distinguish you and I as Baptists they not necessary nor for you to be a faithful Christian That not why I going to try to argue this morning Or they not necessary for you to be a real Christian But that the things that distinguish us as Baptists resonate with the gospel that you and I care so much about They reverberate together.

That the Baptist polity, the way that we structure together as a church, resonates with the truth of having Scripture as your final authority. That resonates with justification by faith in Christ alone. That the way that we do church doesn't pull away from the gospel. It doesn't distract from the gospel.

It actually highlights the very things that we value so much in the gospel. So what I want to do during this sermon this morning is highlight three gospel benefits that Baptist polity offers us. Three gospel benefits that our Baptist church structure offers us as Christians. And you're going to hear fancy terminology like believer's baptism, religious liberty, or congregational structures of association.

Three Key Baptist Distinctives

And I don't want you to get lost in any of those things. What I want to do instead is give you three comparisons—three things that we value in contrast to other things that other people may choose to value. First, Baptist ecclesiology or church structure allows us to value conversion, not ceremonies. It helps us to value conversion, not ceremonies. Second, our Baptist church structure helps us to value conversations, not coercion. Conversations, not coercion.

And number three, Baptist church structure helps us to value cooperation, not connectionalism. Cooperation, not connectionalism. As we walk through different passages of Scripture, as I outline these distinctives, I hope to be able to show you why these things matter as we seek to be faithful in the Christian life. Let's start with point number one, conversions, not ceremonies.

Look again at Jesus' conversation here with Nicodemus. Let me read from verse three. Jesus replied, "Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. How can anyone be born when he is old?"

Nicodemus asked him, "Can he enter his mother's womb a second time and be born?" And Jesus answered, "Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it's going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

How can these things be, asked Nicodemus. are you a teacher of israel and don't know these things jesus is having a conversation with a pharisee a teacher of the law named nicodemus and he's clear you cannot enter the kingdom of god unless you are born again and nicodemus takes that literally He's saying, Jesus, I'm a grown man. I can't climb back into my mom. And Jesus' point is not talking about birth spawned by physical lineage.

He's talking about a different kind of birth, a spiritual birth, a birth that comes from the Holy Spirit. It's a different source, a different kind. Salvation doesn't come from your ancestry; it comes from your faith.

You must be born again. And notice that Jesus isn't just trying to make a point about how you come to know Jesus or the way that you obtained your salvation. He points out something specific about Nicodemus in this conversation. He points out that Nicodemus is a teacher of Israel and doesn't get it.

Because Nicodemus, by all means, would be the pinnacle example of what it means to be a faithful Israelite. He's a teacher of the law. He comes physically as a descendant from Israel. And Jesus' point, as he's talking to Nicodemus, isn't just that him as a human being needs to trust in Christ.

That's universally applicable. His point is that Nicodemus, despite all of his accolades, despite his own ancestry, doesn't have enough to obtain salvation. In fact, look at the picture from the Old Testament that Jesus evokes here in verse fourteen. Look at what he says.

He says, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way and gave his one and only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. Jesus' argument is more than just that God loves you this much, or the astounding news in John 3:16, which I believe is absolutely true. He's giving a very nuanced biblical argument that goes all the way back to the Old Testament—that in Numbers 21, in response to Israel's rebellion against God, God inducts poisonous snakes that are biting and slaughtering Israelites as they're wandering in the wilderness.

And then God calls Moses to create a bronze snake that then gets lifted up in this wilderness, and anyone who looks at this bronze snake will be saved of their illness while everyone else is condemned to die. Jesus' argument to Nicodemus here is that this topic of faith saving you, this idea of belief causing salvation, isn’t something new; he points back to the Old Testament. It goes all the way back to Numbers 21. You have the nation of Israel, and all of them come from the same descendants, from the same ancestors. They're all descendants of Abraham.

And yet all of them, regardless of their physical ancestry, are under the judgment of a holy God. They can't point to their family history. They can't point to the good things that they've done in order to save them. The difference between those who obtain life and those who don't doesn't come from anything that they've obtained from their history, but from their faith, whether or not they look to Jesus.

And the same thing is true for you and me. If anyone is here and you're not a Christian, maybe you don't come from a Christian family. Maybe you have a ton of regrets when you look at the history of your own life. I have good news for you.

None of that has any bearing on your ability to go to Jesus because Jesus saves you on the merits of his righteousness.

The point isn’t about your redemption arc or your Rocky montage to become good enough before a holy God, but on the basis of you looking at the Son of Man lifted up on the cross—him suffering and bearing the weight of your sin on his shoulders, him dying for sin and rising from the dead. If you take your eyes off of yourself and look at Jesus for salvation, you can be saved today; you can be saved right now. You don't need to come from a great past; you just need to believe in your great Savior, you can trust in him. That means that at the heart of this second birth that you and I have in Christ, it doesn't come from any of our ancestry, it doesn't even come from a ritual that you and I perform; it comes through the faith that you and I have in Christ. It's through trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.

In other words, at the very heart of the gospel, there isn’t a ceremony or a ritual. It's conversion—someone coming from death to life by the power of the Spirit, someone turning from their sin and trusting in Christ alone for salvation.

It's not about who you were born under; it's about whether or not you were born again. And this is why any Christian ceremony, any Christian practice that you and I do together in the life of the church, flows out of this spiritual reality that Jesus talks about here in John 3. Turn your Bible to Colossians 2. Colossians chapter 2.

Baptism and New Birth

Colossians chapter 2. This is Paul. This is Paul talking about the good news of salvation, and the image that he uses to describe is salvation that you and I have received through baptism. And look at what he says there in verse 11 of Colossians chapter 2.

It says,

You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ,

— Colossians 2:11 (CSB)

verse 12

when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.

— Colossians 2:12-13 (CSB)

Amazing passage. Don't get too confused by the circumcision language if you don't know what that is. Just remember the Old Testament and the way that Israel would be identified by whether or not they were circumcised, whether or not they cut off that portion of their flesh. So his picture is that the part you're cutting off is the unholy part, and what you're keeping is the holiness, being set apart, being distinguished.

But what Paul’s doing here is really special. He takes that picture of circumcision and the picture of New Testament baptism, and he puts them together, saying, you were circumcised when you were buried with him in baptism. When you were buried—that when you were baptized—when you come to faith in Christ, what’s happening is this picture of being set apart for God, being brought into the family of God, being set apart by the Lord to be holy.

To be one of His children. And notice that for Paul, when he's talking about baptism, he is not talking about your ancestry. He's not talking about you being circumcised because you're a child of Israel. He's not talking about you being baptized because you're the children of Christian parents.

He says that you were baptized through faith in the working of God, that you were dead in your trespasses and you were made alive with Him.

when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

— Colossians 2:12 (CSB)

The picture of baptism isn't just something that you inherit from your parents. Baptism happens as a reflection of your own personal commitment to God at the moment of your conversion, and the clearest picture of that kind of transformation is baptism—being buried with Jesus in His death.

Being raised with Him in new life. In other words, the focus is on what baptism means, not what baptism does. Baptism itself doesn't save you. Baptism itself doesn't seal you by the Holy Spirit. Baptism itself is not the thing that identifies you as being part of the people of God. The necessary component to true baptism, which does all of those things, is whether or not you have faith, whether or not you believe in God.

This is why Paul, by the way, if you want to read this in the afternoon, I would encourage you to read all of Colossians 2. Paul is trying to argue to the Colossians not to trust in festivals, in food or drink, or any ascetic practice. He's basically saying, "Don't trust in ceremonies because Christianity isn't built on these ceremonial rituals in order to ascend up to where God is." That's not the point.

The point of the gospel is that Almighty God took on flesh and came down to us, died on a cross and rose from the dead, and that our salvation is built on trusting in Him. Which means any public profession of faith, whether it's through membership or baptism or the Lord's Supper, all necessarily require faith. That's the dividing line. You must be born again, which is why I frequently say, "I am more than happy to baptize infants, spiritual infants, those who were born again."

anyone who's experienced new birth through faith in Christ, they should be baptized. And I totally get why people would desire to baptize people that don't trust in Christ yet. I know that because Baptists tend to do that all the time. You have a seven-year-old who says, I love Jesus, and you're so anxious for your child to go to heaven.

You give them to the pastor, you say, dunk them. Like, please baptize them. let's seal the deal right now there are people that have children on their membership roles hoping that they come back to christ and man i totally understand that anxiety even that grief of seeing people that you hope that you see in the kingdom of heaven not there with you I talked to so many parents that even are drawn to the thought of baptizing their infants just at the thought of the Spirit maybe having another layer of protection. You might even see that with parents with their child coming up and asking for a baby dedication, which the only difference between that and a child baptism is whether or not the sprinklers are on.

And all of that, if you'll allow me to be really blunt, isn't coming from a bad desire, but it's coming from a bad solution. It's a desire for ceremonies or rituals or actions, providing you a level of reassurance that only faith alone in Christ can actually give. I want to pray for every child in this church that they come to know Christ. I want to see all of them get baptized and trust in Jesus alone as their Savior.

But I want to rejoice, not because their parents have committed to disciple them, even though I want that to happen. I also don want to rejoice in just the fact that they in the life of a church or children of believing parents even though I absolutely want to rejoice in those things I want to rejoice when the seeds of the gospel are planted in their hearts and then begin to grow and bear fruit through the supernatural work of the Spirit as they actually turn from their sin and trust in Jesus. I want to celebrate with all of my heart when someone actually turns from their sin and says, I trust in Christ alone.

When all of the work and prayer and seeds and watering that we do finally bears fruit at the supernatural work of the Spirit in bringing someone from death to life. Don't trust in ceremonies. Trust in the Spirit's ability to convert people to trust in Christ alone. And if salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ alone, then that means we need to rely on the Spirit's methods in order to preach that gospel so that people trust in Christ alone.

In other words, in order to believe in Christ alone, you have to be able to proclaim Christ alone which brings us to point number two Conversation not coercion Conversation not coercion If you and I believe that faith comes through the hearing of the word of Christ, that's what Romans 10 talks about. That faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ. Then that means that people need to be able to hear it. People need to be able to hear the gospel.

And Baptists have believed, by extension, that in order for people to hear it, we need to live in societies that allow you to say whatever you want. I'm not saying you can't bear consequences for saying whatever you want, but what I mean is we've pursued societies that allow a free exercise of religion. The term for that is religious liberty.

The society where the gospel can spread is the one where you can freely proclaim the gospel of Christ, even in a society where the government may disagree with your faith. The most effective faith isn't a Christian nationalist faith; it's a faith that allows you to appeal to everyone's conscience through the word. Turn your Bible to 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

Freedom to Proclaim the Gospel

2 Corinthians chapter 4. It's just a couple books previous to Colossians. I just want to read you how Paul thinks about how people come to faith on the basis of 2 Corinthians chapter 4. it's about all of chapter 3 talking about the glory of christ being stored in suffering sinners or revealing his glory transforming us from glory to glory in the following passage he talks about how that's stored in suffering sinners and displayed through our suffering here's how he understands the act of conversion in the christian life chapter 4 verses 1 to 6 says this

Therefore, since we have this ministry because we were shown mercy, we do not give up. Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorting the word of God, but commending ourselves before God to everyone’s conscience by an open display of the truth. But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’s sake.

— 2 Corinthians 4:1-5 (CSB)

For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Notice what he says. He says, we are appealing to everyone's conscience, your mind, what you think. And the way that you appeal is through an open display of the truth.

That's what we do every single time we sit under the preaching of God's word. That's what happens every single time you open the Bible while you're having a conversation with someone. What you're doing is you are openly displaying the truth. That the force that submits the will to Christ wouldn't come through any earthly power.

Or any earthly sword. Or looking down the barrel of a gun. But it would come through the open display of God word And notice what he says there in verse 6 He says that the God who said let light shine out of darkness shown into the darkness of our hearts that the same way that god speaks light into darkness through his word in creation is what's happening in the heart of every human that turns from their sin and trust in christ in order for you to come to know jesus it took a Genesis 1 level miracle. Light had to pierce through a dead heart and resuscitate it back to life.

Which is why you can never replace the word's power with the world's power. The way God changes hearts is through conversation, not coercion. It's not me forcing you to agree with me; it's me persuading you through the open display of the word.

In other words, you need to talk. It requires words. It's not about manipulation. This is about open display of the truth.

This is the same mistake that the American Puritans made. By sailing into the new world, they thought the way that we can spread Christianity is by establishing a society that would act like a new Zion a literal city on a hill They place a church in the center of their community they baptize all their children and they try to maintain a society a village of 100 belief amongst every person that lived in this community. Except they ran into a problem. Their children didn't believe the gospel, and they're living in this community.

and you can imagine these parents love their kids so what do you do when you love your child do you kick them out of their community they didn't instead what they did was they came up with what was called a halfway covenant they permitted them to participate in community life without demonstrating true conversion and within a few generations puritanism in the united states was dead this is the way that one historian described this effort or this strategy he said when theology became the handmaid of genealogy, Puritanism no longer deserved its name. It's not like other societies fared much better. The nation of England claimed Christ as king.

But King James I refused to recognize the distinction between the church and the state, and he used his own political power as king to crack down on those that were seeking to reform the church in England, and that included the Baptists. And this is what Thomas Helwes, pastor of the First Baptist Church in England— it wasn't literally called the First Baptist Church, but it was the First Baptist Church. I think it was a humbler day back then. This is what he wrote in his letter to King James I.

He said, "For men's religion to God is between God and themselves. The king shall not answer for it. Neither may the king be judged between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever."

It appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure. Let them be heretics. And because of that letter, Helwes was thrown into prison where he died. I don't know about you.

I don think England is very Christian right now Neither is Scotland nor is New England nor is any of the places in all of human history that thought that they could combine church and state in order to make more Christians. If you're tempted by the sword instead of the word to force people to be Christians, you are in danger of making the same error as Peter in the garden of Gethsemane, striking the high priest servant's ear, to which Jesus responded, put your sword back in his place, because all who take up by the sword will perish by the sword. Because power weakens our ability to persuade.

If you try to force conversions, if you try to twist their arm, if you try to pressure them with taxes or punishments in order to make them profess Christ as Lord, you will not gain true converts. You will gain false confessions in order to avoid consequences. After all, can we just be real for a second? Do you trust Congress to discern right doctrine? I hope not. And any power you give the state to use on other people—whether they are Muslims, whether they are Scientologists, whether they are Jews—that same power can then be turned to be used on you. So what do we seek?

Prayer for Leaders and Religious Liberty

Paul talks about this in 1 Timothy 2. He says, "We urge prayers for kings and all who are in authority so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity."

This is good, and it pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

— 1 Timothy 2:3-4 (CSB)

Don't listen to anyone that tells you that in order for you to live a tranquil and peaceful life you need to be rowdy and disruptive. Christians are not revolutionaries; we've never been. That's not the way the gospel works. What we want is to be able to live in a society where you can disagree with me, where I can openly display the truth, where I can take every thought captive to Christ. In order for that to happen you must have an environment where that thought can be expressed. In other words, Baptists don't operate primarily in the palace. We operate in the town square. We are interested in persuasion, in conversation—not because we're anti-change, but because we believe that the public square is where true change comes from.

In other words, our goal is not to lobby the city of Ephesus to ban idols. Our goal is to share the gospel in such a way that so many people hear the word, that the spirit moves, that there's true revival, that they turn from your sin and trust in Jesus in such a way that they voluntarily burn all their books and crush their idols. Such a way that those idol makers can't make any money anymore. If you want to be able to do that, you must be able to herald the excellencies of Christ even when your state thinks that you're a heretic.

Which is why we've always believed, "let them be heretics." I don't care if the United States ends up being completely secular. I don't care if the United States becomes completely Muslim. What I care about is whether or not the state is able to let me share the gospel.

That's what I care about. That's what I want. And the way that the United States stays Christian—whatever that means—is through you and I consistently sharing the gospel with our neighbors, loving them, displaying the message of Christ. If you want to be a faithful Baptist church, be a persuasive church.

Be a church that believes in the persuasion of the word by the power of the Holy Spirit to transform hearts. Because if you really believe that, you will hang on even when it seems like things aren't moving—when you've had this conversation with that guy a dozen times and he still doesn't get it. Where if you could just make this person do this one thing, everything else would just be so much easier. We know better than to steamroll sinners for the sake of our own convenience, because we're not interested in behavior adjustment.

We are interested in belief. We're not interested in just right actions. We're interested in true conversion. We can appeal, as Paul did in 2 Corinthians 10, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.

Those are the only two words he uses to describe the disposition of the Christian as they wage war: meekness and gentleness—to wage war against arguments and every proud thing that's raised up against the knowledge of God.

Because our war is not against flesh and blood, we are to take every thought captive to obey Christ. Are you willing to wage that kind of war?

Are you willing to take your Bible and exhort your brother again for the 50th time that Jesus is better than pornography? Are you willing to speak a word of life to the sister who just can't seem to see the hope of Christ in her life? Are you willing to preach the cross to every sinner who has been seduced by the siren song of sin? We want to build our churches in such a way that we are built on the word and trust in the word's ability to do the work, where we can echo the words of Martin Luther, where he says, “I have done nothing; the word has directed and accomplished it all.” Our trust in God's word is what changes our disposition in the way that we appeal to the sinner in society.

So we believe in believers' baptism because we value conversion, not ceremonies. Believe in religious liberty because we value conversations, not coercion. Our trust in God's work goes beyond the life of our own church. It also extends to the way you and I interact with other churches as well.

Point three: cooperation, not connectionalism. Cooperation, not connectionalism. This is what I mean. Those two words are both Christian SAT words that might not be immediately obvious to you.

Here's what I mean. Baptists don't believe in a visible universal church. They don't believe in a capital‑C church that exists today. In other words, Paul addresses singular churches in cities like Thessalonica—to the church in Thessalonica—and he addresses churches plural and regions like Galatia. Think of Galatia more like a state, right? He addresses the churches, plural.

In other words, these churches, these assemblies, don't megazord together to create a bigger physical church. That's not what's going on. Instead, we believe that the universal church is invisible. It's not expressed through one institution.

In other words, the universal church is invisible because it takes all believers in all times for the last 2,000 years in all places. And that universal church becomes visible in local congregations, in local churches, which is why Baptist denominations, like the Southern Baptist Convention, don't refer to themselves as the church or the Southern Baptist Church in a capital‑C sense in the way you might see in the Presbyterian Church of America or the Anglican Church in North America, because we don't believe in any external structure on top of the church that commands what a local church must or must not do.

Mark Dever is not the Archbishop of Baptist America. Now you may think to yourself, “that actually doesn't sound too bad.” That might be really nice. You might see a lot of wonky things in the church today.

It would come to a very swift end if he were to just be in charge like a philosopher‑king, maybe clear the house for a year and then step back and let everyone else do their thing. I mean, who wouldn't want to see heretical pastors removed from their posts, leaders held accountable for abusive leadership, and a strong mutual awareness and fellowship? And in some cases, you would be right. Connectionalism is more convenient.

That's actually how this structure showed up in the first place in the third and fourth centuries. You have problems happening at a local level and they think maybe if we just appoint a bishop to oversee them, who's extra smart, that would take care of that issue. Running things up the chain of command to more wiser more competent leaders can at times clamp down on corruption That is until the very top becomes corrupt And then the whole house of cards collapses. The problem with any power that you hand over to an external church authority to like fire a pastor or undo excommunications or determine what the Bible teaches, is that the moment that the very top gets bad, the whole thing falls down.

And that's exactly what we've seen happen throughout church history over and over again. Let me just take the last hundred years. The PCUSA, the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, has currently gone so off the rails that their current debate last year, or in this last year in their last meeting, was about whether or not they would accept pastors who are married to multiple people at the same time.

And when they veered towards liberalism, and the PCA—the Presbyterian Church of America—different organizations chose to split from them because they believed in the true Bible, the PCUSA took all of their buildings and their assets and left them with nothing. That is hundreds of millions of dollars that were lost—decades of faithful Christian investment and prayerful hope that these churches would continue to proclaim the gospel for centuries lost because they handed power to an external organization. The story is the same for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in North America. Connectionalism is convenient, but its consequences are cataclysmic.

It absolutely destroys everything in its wake. And for Baptists, the keys of Christ's kingdom does not rest at the top of a bureaucracy, whether it's a pope or a pastor. It lies at the base of a congregation. Turn your Bible to Galatians chapter 1.

Guarding the Gospel Against False Teaching

Galatians chapter 1. This is Galatians—this is Paul talking. We read this when we went over our topical sermon on congregationalism, which I would encourage you to listen to if you haven't. This is Paul talking to the churches plural in Galatia. He tells them in verse 6.

I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him! As we have said before, I now say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, a curse be on him!

— Galatians 1:6-9 (CSB)

I just want you to observe Paul's command to them. The reason why in Galatians 1 Paul commands these churches in Galatia to curse anyone who preaches a false gospel, even himself or an apostle, isn't rooted in himself. It's rooted in the message that he proclaimed. The final authority isn't rooted in any cardinal or bishop.

He says, even if I were to come and preach to you a gospel contrary to what you have heard preached. As in, Paul walks into the church, a church in Galatia. He flashes his apostle card, lets everyone see his qualifications. He stands up in Galatia and says, "Hey guys, I got everything right in what I told you last time, except, turns out, you do need to get circumcised."

I'm really sorry.

the church in galatia is supposed to look at paul and say respectfully a curse be on you you are a cursed you are anti-gospel it doesn't matter if it's an apostle or a literal angel from heaven you discern and you reject false gospels are proclaimed in this church and how do you do that by knowing what the message of the gospel is by knowing the truth that's found in the scriptures which means any biblical conviction comes from convincing or from persuasion you and i can outsource our discernment up the chain we can go hey listen i don know about what the Bible says about homosexuality i just doing whatever the bishop told me you can defer on the message of the gospel up the chain or you will end up with a false gospel like you see in the orthodox church or in the catholic church what we want to do is teach what the bible teaches we want to open the book we want to I've healed everyone to submit to Christ.

And I want you not to be persuaded because I yell at you, because I figured out how to alliterate my points. I want you to listen because you can look at this book and see, "I see where you're getting that. I see what you're saying."

I can see how the gospel message in the word is reverberating with what's being said behind the pulpit. And letting the word work through the gospel message in the life of the congregation. which means that the primary authority doesn't come from any external earthly institution that presses down on the church, but by the congregation holding its leaders and teachers accountable to the message that they preach. Your job every Sunday is to sit listen to this book and go yeah I see that And if I ever come up here and preach to you a different gospel or if any denominational representative comes and preaches a different gospel fire them Get rid of them.

Do whatever you need to do to maintain the clarity and holiness that comes from the true gospel message here, which is why we don't hand over that authority to any external org. Now we partner with all sorts of people—we're part of the Southern Baptist Convention, we're part of the Association for Churches for Missions and Evangelism. Those are great partnerships. You know what they can't do? They can't change the gospel. They can't fire me and replace me with one of their guys. They can't dissolve this church and all of its assets and use that money somewhere else that they want to. And we do all of that intentionally. The way those structures are set up is we share funds and we share fellowship.

We share money and we share friendships. That's what we do. We try to pool them together to advance the work of the gospel. And the reason why we do that, and the reason why we are totally okay with having thousands of denominations—have you ever heard that Protestants have like 4,000 denominations? First of all, that study was wonky.

They counted every non-denominational church as its own denomination. That's not super cool, right? That's just faulty stats work, right? One guy used to say that journalists use statistics the way a drunk, he uses a lamppost, more for support than illumination.

That's kind of what's going on there. The second thing is that for Baptists especially, we've never understood the unity that we have with other Christians based on whether or not we're part of the same club, whether or not you're part of our tribe, whether or not you use the word providence instead of the work of the Spirit. That's never been the thing that we use to define whether or not someone's in the body of Christ. The unity that we've found with other Christians isn't on whether or not we're part of the same denomination or even whether or not we're part of the same church, but whether or not we share the same gospel.

Do we believe the same thing from this book?

Because if we believe in the same thing inside this book, then you are a brother or sister in Christ, and I am happy to pray with you, to encourage you, to be as much of a life‑giving partner in the gospel as I can with you, which is why I am more than happy to pray for churches that don't do church the same way as us, which is why I am more than happy to team up with another Christian where him and I might not do church the same way but we're both going to be reaching out to that same unbeliever and appealing to him with the same gospel, because a biblical understanding—a proper biblical understanding of what makes us Baptist—should make you more patient. It should make you more patient. And here's why.

Because the biblical principles that cause that disagreement between you and another church, that practices things a little bit differently from you—whether it be believer baptism or membership or congregationalism—if you don't know the biblical reasons why you disagree with them, your disagreement with them will always be personal. It becomes tribal. It becomes a vibe thing. It becomes, "Oh, we know the Bible better than you," even though I can't tell you why the Bible says it, and you'll throw out a bunch of signals behind the pulpit where they make fun of people that disagree with them and create their own little pinatas that they can beat up and make fun of so you can feel reassured that what you believe is right.

I don't want that in our church. I don't want that kind of tribalistic arrogance that comes from lack of understanding. What I'm advocating for is real understanding, where you're able to look at someone who follows Christ and say two things at the same time.

Number one, we share Jesus together. And that is far more important than any of the other disagreements that we'll ever have. And number two, I so respect your conviction on what the Bible teaches. that I'll respect it enough to go to a different church than you That if you really believe the Bible teaches that you need to baptize babies you and I just can be part of the same church I going to either make you sin or you going to make me sin By violating our conscience and our desire to follow Christ.

And when you either maximize the difference, where you write off everyone off the reservation that doesn't agree 100% with you, or you minimize the differences by saying that none of those distinctions matter, in both cases you are ignoring what the Bible actually teaches, and you minimize the necessary call to be faithful to Christ in obedience to the Scriptures. I want real, cheerful conviction. That's what I want in our church. I want us to be able to smile and talk about our disagreements.

Because protecting our trust in Scripture alone and faith alone necessarily means that I love my Presbyterian brother's desire to be faithful to the Bible more than I do my desire to force them to do everything exactly the way that I would. I love that they're trying to be faithful to Scripture. I love that they're being sincere in their efforts in order to be faithful to Christ's word. And here's the advantage: if you are a congregationalist, if you believe that this local church is a local church and that there is no external authority that forces other churches to do things the way that you would, then that means you don't have to make them into you. I don't have to force a Presbyterian to become Baptist.

They can go to a Presbyterian church and do all their Presbyterian things. I can respect their convictions and recognize that they're a true gospel church, and we're able to protect our own consciences by obeying Jesus, doing things the way that we believe the Bible teaches, and we're able at the same time to cooperate in meaningful ways that promote gospel unity. I love that next week on Sunday night we're not going to meet here; we're going to go down to Faith Presbyterian Church in Long Beach and celebrate with tons of other Presbyterian and Baptist churches, celebrating the good news of the gospel that we retrieved at the Reformation. I love that. I also love that they're not going to be baptizing any babies during that service.

I love that I'm not going to be showing off any unbaptized babies in front of all of them, trying to provoke them with my supposed obedience to Christ. I love that we're able to cooperate together and celebrate the gospel that we share without violating each other's consciences, because what it does is it allows us to place the pressure in the right places— not exerting power, but persuasion.

I remember taking Pastor James, right? He was visiting this church when I first became pastor. I was giving him a tour of the building. I'm standing right up there in the baptistry, right?

Because of the best view of this room. I'm showing him where people would normally sit on Sundays. And James Lim is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I looked over at him and I started smirking.

I said, you know, James, we could fix this right now. No one has to know, right? Look, here is water. And he just laughed at me, right?

And we had a jovial time. I would go over to their church for evangelism events and other encouraging fellowship And I would sit at tables with all elders of Presbyterian churches And they like and you a Baptist And they would just dog on me for all of lunch. And I loved it. It was so fun.

I love that we get to trust in the word's power to persuade more than my own political ability to manipulate or coerce them to do everything the way I would. It allows us to partner with other churches that share our confession and our convictions in ways that aren't competitive but truly catholic. There are over 25,000 people within a mile radius of this church building. Do you think they could fit in here?

No. And the last thing I want us to do is build an empire built on the banner of First Baptist Church of Artesia or on John Lee. What we need is more gospel preachers that love Jesus, that obey the Lord in their own local churches which means we can send a pastor and members to a church like La Sierra Baptist from Riverside and seek to build that kingdom rather than First Baptist kingdom We can hear about good work that can happen in Cyprus or in Cerritos or in other places and pray and earnestly desire that God grows those places. Even send resources, pastors, members, whatever we can do to build up Christ's kingdom because what unites us isn't whether or not we're under the same institution, but whether or not we share the same gospel.

All of those partnerships have clear parameters. In other words, we have clear lines, and we want to weigh those lines appropriately. One friend put it this way: you want to keep the fences super clear.

You want to keep those fences low, and you want to shake hands often. That's what we want to do as Baptists. We want to share not the same ecclesial responsibility, but the same scriptural responsibility.

And you get to walk with them, not walk for them. Because we cooperate We don connect We seek to convince We don coerce And we trust in conversion not ceremonies So I want to encourage you to be a good Baptist. Be a good Baptist because I believe that being a good Baptist helps you be a good Christian. As we seek to build up this church and encourage other churches with the good news of the gospel, and seek to be faithful as churches, let's see God display his glory to the ends of the earth where you and I are able to say, it wasn't anything that we did, but the word did the work.

Let's pray. Let's pray. We do pray. We do pray that you would help us to be faithful to you as a church.

Lord, expose any things that we do that's incorrect from your word and chisel us, shape us to be more faithful to you. Pray, Lord, that you would help us rely on your word's ability to transform hearts, and that we would be found faithful in the day that you return. Pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.