According to the Scriptures

Guest (Male): A church split. If you've not experienced it yourself, no doubt you probably know of a church just down the street that has. It's been happening at an alarming rate in the church and the damage that occurs as a result, well, nothing short of devastating. Today on According to the Scriptures, Pastor Damian Kyle will help us steer clear of this sort of behavior as we get back into our series here in 1 Corinthians. We'll be in chapter one, focusing on verses 10 through 17. Join us for this highly relevant study on contentions and divisions.

Damian Kyle: Somebody says something, you say, "Oh, you're a Christian?" And then they'll say, "Yes, I'm a Christian." And then today more so than ever in my lifetime, then people will say, "Well, wasn't the Lord good to you, and isn't he so fabulous?" and all of this kind of thing. And then it might go over to, "What church do you attend?" and that kind of a deal. But where somebody you say, "Are you a Christian?" and somebody says, "Yes, I am a Christian," and then the first word is, "What kind of Christian are you? Are you a Methodist? Presbyterian? Oh, we hate those Presbyterians. We hate those Methodists."

Jesus, in terms of sectarianism, he was not interested at all. Campbell Morgan had it right, and not to elevate a denomination or any other identification in a church or in a local body. We're affiliated with the Calvary Chapel movement around the world, but I never elevate that affiliation above Christ. You never hear me do that because as important as it is, it doesn't even remotely approach the fact that we are about Jesus Christ.

Jesus, of course, being the definitive voice related to this, you remember he rebuked this sectarian spirit in his disciples. Jesus said, "Do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side." "Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name. We forbade him because he doesn't follow us." He's casting out demons! I mean, how happy is the person that had the demon cast out of them? Now you're going to rebuke him and tell him to stop? That's where it can go. And Jesus rebuked it in the apostles.

We're told in verse 11 that all of this was made known to the apostle Paul by those of Chloe's household. In other words, all of this sectarianism, these divisions, the contention that was going on, it had grown and bloomed into being very well known within the community. It was widely known that this was dominating the church. I say three cheers and utmost respect to the household of Chloe for making this known to Paul. They had a high view of the church in the household of Chloe, and so they felt strongly enough about the health and the future of that local church in Corinth and the importance of a local church period that they recognized that this is a danger to the very existence of the future existence of this church.

They brought it to someone's attention. They brought it to Paul's attention. And they didn't just bring it to anybody's attention. They brought it to Paul's attention because Paul was a part of the solution. We are never gossiping when we involve someone in a situation that is in need of attention, when we involve someone who is a part of the solution. It is gossip when I speak these things to someone who has no need to know because they're not a part of the solution.

And so they spoke to Paul because he's a part of the solution to this. The letter comes out of it in part. It really takes courage for someone to do that. The thing we notice too concerning Chloe is that he was willing to then be identified with the information. He didn't say, "Listen, Paul, you've got to—this is an anonymous source. You can never tell them where this came from." Sometimes it has to be that way. There's complications related to it, and then that creates additional work for Paul or any leader to deal with that. But he told Paul concerning himself and his household, "We are willing to be identified as the source of this information to you, and we stand by it."

It's amazing how many Christians can remain silent when you've got these kind of dangers going on in a church and not say anything until it's kind of engulfed in flames and in real trouble. You notice Paul's rebuke of their carnal contention in this regard there in verses 13 through 17. He asks them three rhetorical questions and he does so in order to remind them to remind us that we are Christians before we are anything else. Being a Christian is our supreme identity. So he says in their rhetorical questions, "Is Christ divided?" The answer is, "No, absolutely not."

So the point is that Christ is part of a church. If we are a church and we are part of a church, we are representing Jesus Christ. And when there are divisions like what is happening here in Corinth, then we are presenting Jesus as being divided. And so he's to be represented before the world as undivided, and we're not to take to ourselves these lesser kind of identifications. We're Christians first and foremost.

So if we tell an unsaved person in witnessing to them or sharing with them or whatever, or we want them to know that we are a Christian and we begin by saying, "I'm a Baptist. I'm a Pentecostal. I'm a Presbyterian," as opposed to just saying, "I am a Christian," because that is what we want them to see in us and become a Christian as well. Baptist has a lot of baggage. Pentecostal as a label has a lot of baggage. All of the labels have a lot of baggage, including our own. There's no baggage related to Christianity. I'm not asking them to become a Pentecostal or attend Calvary Chapel to be saved. I want them to know that I'm a Christian, and that's who I'm representing in my interaction with them.

It's just confusing for people. If we have all of these other kind of definitions and all of these denominations and non-denominations that we lead with, and especially with somebody that's untaught, then all of that's just going to confuse people and confuse the unsaved. It might make them steer clear of church and Christianity altogether, just kind of thinking that they don't want to become a part of something that is as divided as Christianity seems to be. If they can't seem to get on the same page together, then why in the world would I think they could get my life situated as well? I have enough drama. I have enough difficulty in my life without going to a church to be exposed to more of it.

We live in the United States of America. And so you have all of this in Corinth, all these things coming from the outside then into the church. We face the same kind of challenge here related to our culture. And the United States of America is, in my opinion, the most hyphenated nation in the world. You have Irish-Americans, Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and you go right on down the line for every nation in the world or every race in the world. And if you within a nation—and it's something that we face here—if I elevate these hyphens, these hyphenated identities above simply being an American and the other thing leads, then what's it going to produce? Division. It's going to produce conflict. It has to.

In the same way, unfortunately, Christianity is for sure the most hyphenated religion in the world. You've got Pentecostal Christians, Baptist Christians, Lutheran Christians, Charismatic Christians, Presbyterian Christians, and so forth. And if you've ever as you witness with people, it's interesting to realize that one of the great things that, for instance, Islam—but they're not alone in this—one of the great devices that they use to turn people away from even considering Christianity is that there are so many divisions within it by which it identifies itself. And so they say, "Listen, if they can't even—you come over here into Islam, it's just one thing and one thing." You've got Shia, you've got Sunni, but you've got—and then the appeal, and they'll use that against us.

Nothing wrong with the identifications. We just can't lead with that in the world, and it will produce—tend to produce division and disunity within the body of Christ if we do so in the eyes of the world. And of course it would. And then Paul very safely uses himself as an example of how inappropriate or silly it would be to elevate anyone into a place in our lives that belongs only to Christ. He says, "Was Paul crucified for you?" This is the beautiful tact on the part of the apostle Paul. He doesn't say, "Was Cephas crucified for you?" Oh boy, now he's attacking Cephas. So the best thing to do is just make yourself the example, the brunt of the example. And so he does. And so was Paul crucified for you? Of course not.

Then Paul does an excursion into water baptism in 14 through 17, and he declares in verse 14 and 16 that he had baptized only a few. It also appears that in Jesus's ministry that he did not baptize people, but he left the baptism of people to his disciples. John chapter four verse one: "Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees heard that he Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though John adds the caveat, although Jesus did not baptize but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again to Galilee."

So like Jesus, both Peter and Paul, they appear to have allowed their associates to baptize new Christians for the most part. They didn't make it a priority in their particular calling. They made sure it was done. In Acts chapter 10 verse 46, you have Peter declaring, "Can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" there in Cornelius's house. And then we're told, "And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord." It didn't say he went and baptized them. He commanded others to baptize them in the name of the Lord.

So Paul is not diminishing the importance of baptism in the Christian life. We just had a baptism last Sunday night. It's a command in Christianity, but reminding them that when we are baptized, or we were baptized, we were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and of Billy Graham or Damian Kyle or throw your name in there. No, it would never fit. Talking about any mere human being or any mere Christian, no matter how great God uses them, you just don't allow them to encroach into the area in our lives that belongs only to God. It sounds foolish to say it. It's even more foolish to act like it, like the church of Corinth was doing.

Paul said, lest in verse 15, "Lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name." Lest anyone thinks that I'm going around water baptizing and then saying, "Now if anybody asks you, you tell them you were baptized by Paul and you're one of mine." All he cared about was just pointing them to Jesus. And then he makes an interesting statement: "For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel." So Paul's statements here related to water baptism, God did not call me to baptize. That statement would make no sense at all if water baptism was a part of our salvation.

It happens after we're saved, but not as a part of being saved. Paul would never make that statement if water baptism was necessary in order to be saved. And sometimes you have groups within the body of Christ that identify themselves as Christians and they hold to a doctrine called baptismal regeneration. That you are not saved solely on the basis of putting your faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, but you are not saved until you are also water baptized. Paul knew nothing about this doctrine and he makes it very, very clear here in the passage. No one could be more zealous for the salvation of people in the church age than the apostle Paul. And if baptism was required for it, then he certainly would have been baptizing right and left.

Baptism's important, but only after we are saved. Now again personally and I close with this, I don't see anything wrong with denominations or with non-denominations, and I see nothing wrong with denominations or groups of Christians having doctrinal distinctives to help identify them. I think it can be very, very helpful for a church to identify itself with certain doctrinal positions concerning the person and the work of the Holy Spirit in a local church, or making clear whether they do or do not embrace a five-point Calvinism view of salvation, or a church making clear that they do not hold that view of the Scriptures concerning salvation and so forth.

Nothing wrong with that so that people then can come to a church, understand what their doctrinal positions are biblically and then decide whether they want to attend that church. If they hold doctrines that a person feels strongly—we're not talking about essential doctrines here—feels strongly about and that church doesn't hold that, then they go and they find a church that does adhere to that doctrine in the way that they do in their own personal convictions.

If you did not allow churches to have these kind of distinctives, even in terms of how the service is run or the worship and the place of that, but if you didn't allow churches to have that kind of doctrinal distinctives and for people then to find a place that matches what it is that they want to be a part of, then what we would do is we would come to church every Sunday and we would fight over all of those distinctives because we wouldn't agree on them. But if I can go to the camp that I think best understands that doctrine, now we don't have to be beating that horse every week. Now we can leave that be, we understand where we are, and now we can move on to what Christianity is really about and growing in our personal relationship with the Lord.

So all of that is important. I don't think I need to elaborate on the terrible damage that contentions and divisions cause among Christians and the damage that it causes not only to Christians, but imagine to Jesus's reputation in the eyes of the world. So a church is intended to be a peaceful place. If I have no other peaceful place in my life, then I need the church that I attend to be that, a quiet place, an edifying place in my life, a refuge from a world that's filled with division and contention.

And these kind of divisions that were happening in Corinth made the churches as unpeaceful as the rest of the world. In addition, I think that when a church becomes known for all of its camps and all of its factions and parties and fighting and division and all, it is through impacting the world for God. They will just in-fight. And what was happening in Corinth, the first casualty of that is evangelism, a concern for the lost, getting the gospel to the lost because our entire focus then within a church become winning these contentions and these fights within the church. And so who's winning, who's losing in this fight, in this battle, in this contention?

And then the division uses up all of the oxygen in the room. Ultimately, those who are truly spiritual in the church, they come to church to worship the Lord, they come to church to grow in their relationship with the Lord, and then to go out and share the gospel through their lives and through the preaching of the gospel. They will then leave that kind of church—a contentious church—for one that cares about these things. And then you're doomed. When that group leaves, now all you have left is just a purely carnal church made up of fighting people and people who love to fight. And that church will die if it doesn't repent as Paul calls on them to do here.

And so this passage brings out the folly of putting our primary focus in the church (lowercase c) and Church (uppercase C) on anyone other than Christ. Christ is the one that we can safely agree upon and safely identify ourselves with without creating a division with others as a result of that. And a failure to do that, kind of identifying myself with lessers, with mere human beings, or taking on some kind of a church denomination identity supremely, the result is going to be division. And so our time tonight I think will have been very, very well spent if this indoctrinates us from this kind of thing. It helps us to see it clearly in our own heart, to see it clearly among other Christians, and it keeps us from ever doing damage in this regard.

Guest (Male): Well, that's Pastor Damian Kyle here on According to the Scriptures. He's got a bit more to say and we'll have that for you momentarily. What you've heard today is just part of our study in 1 Corinthians. Well, for resource requests like today's message on CD, reach out to us by phone. The number is 209-545-5530. That's 209-545-5530. Pastor Damian Kyle's studies can also be heard online at accordingtothescriptures.com, oneplace.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we also have a church app where you can listen to Damian as well. Search for Calvary Chapel Modesto in the App Store or Google Play. If you would like to partner with us financially with a financial gift, you can do that through our website at accordingtothescriptures.com. And thank you very much. Well, let me also give you our mailing address: According to the Scriptures, 4300 American Avenue, Modesto, California. The zip code is 95356. Now let's get back into the message now once again. Here's Pastor Damian.

Damian Kyle: I would guess that one of the hardest things that a person would ever have to deal with, if they didn't harden their heart, would be to look back on their Christian past and have been instrumental in splitting a church. And then having to live with that. And then done that not merely to a church, but to all of the people that attended that church and got caught in the middle of that. That to me would be one of the hardest things to ever live with. And this passage will steer us clear from so deep a regret.

Guest (Male): Well, next time we get together, our attention will shift to the gospel. Join us tomorrow as we notice how it's wise, powerful, and simple. According to the Scriptures with Damian Kyle is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Modesto.