00:00: Please find your way to Romans chapter 16.
00:06: You've probably heard the story of the man shipwrecked at sea, ends up on a desert island all alone, spends 20 years isolated on this island without another human being around.
00:20: And then finally, after two decades go by, a ship happens to go to the island and finds him and rescues him.
00:27: And as the captain of the ship talks to this lone survivor, he notices that there's three huts on the shore of the island.
00:35: And he asks the man, why are there three huts if you're all alone here?
00:41: And the guy says, well, the hut on the left, that's my house.
00:45: And the hut on the right, well, that's my church.
00:45: The captain says, oh, okay, I get that.
00:52: But what about the hut in the middle?
00:52: The man says, well, that's the church I used to go to.
00:56: We laugh, you know, a joke like that because we know that people can be unnecessarily divisive where sometimes they'll divide even with themselves.
01:04: I remember an incident where one of my children as a youngster was in conflict with themselves.
01:12: And I was watching this play out.
01:21: And I'm like, my child is fighting with himself and losing.
01:21: I don't even know what to make of that.
01:34: When should Christians retain unity?
01:34: And when should Christians divide?
01:34: This is not a minor question.
01:42: This is important.
01:42: It's significant.
01:42: And it's not an irrelevant question because as Christians, we need to deal with these kinds of things.
01:47: For us personally, as a congregation, we're on the brink of leaving the denomination of which we have been a part for about 90 years.
02:00: It's especially relevant for us to consider these things.
02:00: Now, I'm not teaching on this topic because of our present situation.
02:07: I'm teaching on this topic because we're working through the book of Romans.
02:12: And that's where we're at right now.
02:12: Now, as we've studied the book of Romans, we took a number of weeks when we got to chapter 14, where Paul was insisting upon an urging unity amongst believers.
02:26: And in chapter 14, and even the beginning of 15, he was dealing with the issue of Christians who were not in contradiction of God's word, but had different ideas of how to live out their faith.
02:39: They had differing ideas of how to best glorify God as they lived out their Christian belief, their confidence in Christ.
02:45: And Paul's message was, you don't divide over those kinds of things.
02:51: You maintain unity.
02:51: You live and let live when Christians have differing ideas on how to best glorify God.
02:57: And the way he spoke about it, it was clear that each group was in fact glorifying God in the choices they were making.
03:04: Well, then now as we get to the, towards the end of chapter 6, we find Paul simultaneously warning against division in the church and counseling division within the church.
03:19: And in fact, he does so in the same sentence.
03:19: Look at verses 17 and 18 with me.
03:26: Paul writing as an apostle to the church in Rome says, I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.
03:36: Avoid them.
03:44: For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites.
03:44: And by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.
03:51: Focus in on 17 to begin with.
03:51: I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.
04:07: Avoid them.
04:07: And the first thing I want to point out is that Paul gives two imperative instructions, two do this commands.
04:13: Number one, watch out for a particular group of people.
04:13: Be on alert.
04:13: Keep your eyes peeled for these kind of people.
04:22: We'll get into which people those are in a moment.
04:22: And the second imperative is once you've ID'd these folks, once you recognize these folks, avoid them.
04:28: Eyes open for these folks.
04:36: And when you spot them, avoid them.
04:36: Those are the two imperatives of verse 17.
04:40: Well, what kind of person is it that Paul wants Christians to be watching out for?
04:40: Verse 17 specifies, those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.
04:59: They're creating division and creating obstacles that are contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught, meaning you, the church in Rome.
05:06: The defining characteristic of these folks is that they have a negative effect on the Christian believers because they contradict right Christian doctrine.
05:22: That is, they teach or they stand for things that are doctrinally false.
05:29: Pause for a moment and consider what we're really seeing here.
05:32: Paul is concerned about two things.
05:32: He's concerned about unity in the church and he's concerned about right doctrine.
05:40: Both.
05:43: These are both priorities.
05:45: Which one is most important?
05:49: Is it unity or is it doctrine?
05:52: I want to give two answers to that question.
05:56: The first answer is both are vitally important.
06:00: Both are very high priority issues in the Christian life.
06:04: We cannot pursue one and ignore the other or say, this one matters and that one doesn't.
06:10: They're both a big deal in God's word.
06:13: They're both vital.
06:14: That said, my second answer is this.
06:17: Doctrine trumps unity for the sake of unity.
06:24: Doctrine trumps unity for the sake of unity.
06:28: Now notice in verse 17 that the folks who contradict right doctrine are the source of division.
06:35: These are the folks creating division by their contradicting right doctrine.
06:40: When Christians divide from other professing Christians because the other folks have embraced teachings contrary to what is biblical, it is those who believe the unbiblical things who are really the cause of division.
06:56: Let me give an illustration of this.
06:59: I'm not a baseball guy.
07:01: I played it growing up until I was 13.
07:03: Never very good at it.
07:04: But I know that there are a lot of folks who love to play baseball or as you get older they play softball, whatever.
07:09: Imagine if we decided to start up a church softball league.
07:14: We coordinate with other churches and all these churches, field teams, and you've got 10, 12, 20, I don't know, whatever number of churches, and they each have their teams.
07:24: And as this happens, Jeff gets beyond excited, right?
07:28: He's like, yes, I'm going to play on the Faith Chapel softball team.
07:33: And suppose this league's going on and this church plays that church this day and the season's going on.
07:39: But we show up one day for a game against a particular church, and this other church says, you know, it's not three strikes and you're out.
07:49: It's five strikes.
07:50: And it's not three outs and you switch which team's up to bat.
07:55: It's five outs before you switch.
07:59: What?
08:01: That's not how baseball or softball works.
08:03: Three strikes and you're out.
08:05: Three outs and you switch which team's up to bat.
08:07: That's how it works, right?
08:09: And you've got a problem if one of the teams in the league says, no, we're going to change the rules.
08:17: We're going to change the system, right?
08:21: What do you do with that?
08:23: You can't simply ignore it.
08:25: You've got to deal with it.
08:26: And what would end up happening is eventually, if they couldn't come back to the legitimate rules of softball, that team would have to be kicked out of the league because it doesn't work.
08:36: And kicking that weird team out doesn't mean you're being divisive.
08:41: They were the ones creating the conflict in the division.
08:46: The reality is, if you're going to have a softball league, the basic rules of softball is what unites all those teams.
08:53: That's what holds them together.
08:55: It doesn't work if one team shows up and says, we're playing kickball.
08:57: Another team says, we're playing volleyball.
08:59: Another team says, we're playing basketball.
09:01: What are you doing?
09:01: You've got to have a common set of this is what we're about.
09:06: Doctrine trumps unity for the sake of unity.
09:17: You can't pursue unity directly.
09:20: If unity matters more than truth, you end up with ever-increasing false theology.
09:28: And then what is supposed to unite us becomes so watered down that it can no longer bind us together.
09:33: That's why churches and denominations have doctrinal statements.
09:39: These are efforts to say, this is what we believe.
09:42: This is what we have in common.
09:44: We're going to unite around this.
09:49: Now let's go back from softball to Christianity.
09:51: What are the softball rules equivalent?
09:55: What is it that some can end up diverging away from that Paul is addressing here?
10:01: Look at verse 17.
10:03: I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.
10:14: Avoid them.
10:15: So Paul's familiar with what this church has been taught in terms of Christian doctrine.
10:19: He says what you were taught, the Christian beliefs that were handed to you, that's what you stick to.
10:26: And when people go away from that, you need to recognize that they're going away from that.
10:31: You need to avoid that group of people.
10:33: Those kind of folks.
10:34: Here in verse 17, Paul calls this standard of teaching the doctrine that you have been taught.
10:44: Earlier in his same letter to the Roman church, in chapter 6, Paul calls it the standard of teaching to which you were committed.
10:54: 2 Timothy chapter 1 verses 13 and 14, Paul tells Timothy, Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.
11:08: Guard the good deposit entrusted to you.
11:14: In Titus 1.9, we're told that there's concern about the trustworthy word as taught and sound doctrine.
11:23: Acts 20, 27, Paul speaking to the Ephesian elders, He talks about the whole counsel of God.
11:30: What we're really talking about is the apostolic teaching.
11:35: God sent Jesus.
11:37: Jesus came to earth.
11:38: He became a human being.
11:39: He lived and ministered and then gave himself on the cross, died, rose again.
11:45: But in that time, he chose apostles that they might be with him and might then be sent out to teach what he wanted taught, to represent him to the world.
11:56: And the content of the teaching that the apostles received from Jesus and then handed to the church is the content of what we have in the scriptures.
12:07: It's the New Testament, New Covenant message.
12:13: Theology is not a free-for-all.
12:15: We are actually expected by God to stick with and keep believing what God has recorded for us in the scripture.
12:24: We're not to be okay with people contradicting what the Bible teaches.
12:28: In fact, according to this passage, we're to watch out for such people and avoid them because by contradicting right doctrine, right theology, they are bringing division and obstacles into the church.
12:43: Think about our marching order as Christians.
12:48: We are told in Matthew chapter 28 that we are to be fulfilling the Great Commission.
12:53: Jesus said, So in his marching orders that Jesus gives his followers, part of what we're supposed to do is say, we as followers of Jesus are actually to obey everything that Jesus has commanded.
13:25: So we've got to know everything that Jesus has commanded and land there, do that.
13:29: That's part of what it is to be a follower of Jesus and what it is to make disciples.
13:35: Here at Faith Chapel, we say that our mission is for every believer to become, make, mature, and multiply fully surrendered disciples of Jesus Christ.
13:45: Christ, we've got to deal with our own logs in our own eyes, right?
13:50: We've got to start off by dealing with wherever it is in our lives that we are struggling to be fully surrendered to Jesus.
13:56: We've got to continually bend the knee before Jesus and say yes because God's going to continue to be at work in our lives, pointing out areas where we're off base, where we're not walking in the way that we ought to, and we need to keep saying, All right, I affirm what you say, Lord, and submit to that.
14:14: But even as we do that, we're supposed to be investing in others and helping them to likewise grow in their faith and not just intellectual faith, but lived out faith in obedience to Jesus.
14:27: Now, this doesn't mean that there's zero room for disagreement.
14:30: It's not possible for every Christian to have fully correct understanding of every detail of every tiny little thing in the Bible.
14:37: But there are things in Scripture that we need to stand up for and things that we can't afford to divide over.
14:44: How many kinds of angels are there in existence?
14:46: And when exactly is Jesus coming back?
14:49: And how do all the descriptions in the Bible of how things are going to work out at the end, how do they fit together?
14:53: And do we have a perfect understanding of those?
14:56: Those are things that we just cannot afford to divide over.
15:00: The Scripture isn't that clear.
15:02: And in reality, we can live together in harmony and faith without disobedience to Jesus, without having full unity on those things.
15:11: But notice the difference between Romans 14 and here in Romans 16.
15:15: Romans 14 was Christians who were not violating sound doctrine.
15:22: They were not teaching false theology.
15:24: They were not believing false theology.
15:26: But as they believed what was true and right, they said, how do I live this out?
15:30: And different believers had different answers to that question.
15:35: Some of them said, I'm going to go ahead and drink alcohol to the glory of God.
15:39: Some of them said, I'm not going to drink alcohol.
15:42: And I'm going to not drink alcohol to the glory of God.
15:45: Which one did it right?
15:47: Yes.
15:48: Some of them ate meat.
15:50: Some of them didn't.
15:52: Each for the glory of God.
15:53: And they both did right in so doing.
15:55: There are lots of areas for Christians to live out their faith in various ways.
16:03: Should you share the gospel with somebody over a cup of coffee?
16:06: Or should you be out on the street corner doing evangelism?
16:10: There's not a right or wrong answer to that question.
16:12: Christians can legitimately do either.
16:17: Should a Christian allow their children to go trick-or-treating?
16:21: Or should they not participate in that?
16:22: You can do either choice to the glory of God.
16:27: Should you voluntarily celebrate some of the Old Testament holidays?
16:30: Or should you skip those?
16:32: You can make either of those choices to the glory of God.
16:35: Those are agree to disagree issues.
16:37: But here in Romans 16, it has to do with contradicting the apostles' teaching.
16:43: Contradicting and or outright teaching doctrine that doesn't match what we have in the Bible.
16:50: Now we're in a different area.
16:53: We're in a different issue.
16:57: It's easy and it's tempting to say, unity is so important, which it is, that I will therefore put aside doctrinal matters and just treat them as not very significant.
17:14: It's a mistake we dare not make.
17:15: Now before we close, I want to show a couple of final things found in verse 18.
17:23: I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.
17:29: Avoid them.
17:30: For, here's the basis, for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites.
17:38: Appetites.
17:40: And, by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.
17:48: First thing he says is, that when people teach things that contradict the New Testament's teaching, they're not actually serving Jesus by doing that.
17:57: Instead, they're actually serving their own appetites.
18:00: That is, they're teaching what they're teaching to get what they want, to get the result that they desire.
18:10: 400, 450 years ago, a guy named Thomas Cranmer, the guy who wrote the Book of Common Prayer, he said, what the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.
18:24: That is, when we really want a certain result, that's what we choose.
18:28: We choose what will get us there.
18:30: And we'll find a way to explain it like, oh yeah, this is legit because, to get the end result that we want.
18:38: When people teach doctrine that contradicts what is in God's word, they're not serving God by doing that.
18:44: Instead, what they're doing is something that helps them get what they want.
18:47: I think of some examples would be prosperity gospel.
18:51: The idea that God wants you to be happy, healthy, and wealthy.
18:55: That if you have faith in God, that's how things are going to work out.
19:00: Well, people that teach that want earthly prosperity.
19:04: And or, they want to manipulate people to get their money.
19:09: Sometimes we see it in people tweaking the message of Christianity in order to make it more palatable, more appealing to people.
19:17: Or, we see it when people want to retain power and control and position and prestige, and they say, I'm going to do what I need to do to make sure that that happens.
19:28: The Pharisees were a great example of that in how they responded to Jesus.
19:33: I think of a fellow I knew years ago who struggled with homosexual temptation, and he ended up choosing to believe that the Bible didn't actually say anything against that.
19:46: That he could embrace Christianity and be a Christian and be saved and pursue same-sex behavior.
19:54: Because he wanted that.
19:55: He didn't want to give up Christianity, and he didn't want to say no to his desires, and so he justified it.
20:03: Remaking the Bible's teachings to get us the results we want is a temptation that we can't give into.
20:11: And when we see that happening, we cannot defend it by saying, well, you know, they're still serving Jesus, because what they're really doing is not serving Jesus, at least in that sense.
20:25: But it's not just what they're trying to get, that they're serving their own appetites.
20:30: It's also, by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.
20:36: Paul is telling Christians to watch out for and avoid a certain kind of people, and this kind of people he's talking about, they seem nice.
20:45: By smooth talk and flattery.
20:48: These are not mean people.
20:50: These are not people that walk up to you and say, you're an idiot, you should believe this.
20:54: No, these are folks who come across as nice.
20:58: Flattery.
21:01: By flattery, they deceive.
21:03: I looked it up.
21:03: The word flattery here literally is the word for blessing or a gift.
21:08: They provide gifts or blessings verbally that help you want to like them, that help you want to be on their team or in their camp or so on.
21:19: They praise you.
21:20: They compliment you.
21:21: They make you feel good about yourself in order to get you on board with their agenda.
21:27: And in the midst of it, what they're really doing is deceiving you as they turn away from what God actually says in his word.
21:35: Think back to the fall.
21:36: Adam and Eve in the garden.
21:38: Satan comes along.
21:41: How does he do it?
21:43: He deceives.
21:44: He talks a good talk to slowly draw Eve away from actually obeying what God has said.
21:51: In fact, one of his questions is, did God actually say, begins to call into doubt and misrepresent God?
22:04: Who gets conned by this kind of thing?
22:07: By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.
22:11: Naive are not bad people.
22:14: Naive just means that, essentially, they're not that discerning, at least not yet.
22:22: I don't think this necessarily means people who are generically naive in the broadest sense.
22:28: I've got a family member, an absolute sweetheart, love her dearly.
22:32: She tends to be naive.
22:33: She tends to be pretty gullible.
22:34: And we have some fun back and forth with that.
22:39: I don't think it's talking about that.
22:40: I think this is talking about people who are doctrinally naive.
22:45: People who are naive to methods of manipulation.
22:48: That's the context that we're talking about here.
22:50: These are people, I think, who don't know Christian doctrine and God's word very well, and people who don't recognize manipulative tactics.
22:59: That is, they're not very mature in discernment yet.
23:05: C.H.
23:05: Spurgeon, back in the 1800s, he said, discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong.
23:14: It is knowing the difference between right and almost right.
23:18: I think that's a helpful distinction.
23:20: If somebody says, Jesus can't save you at all.
23:27: Well, we'd all recognize that right out of the gate.
23:29: No, that's not right.
23:30: But what if they say, oh yeah, you need to believe in Jesus and you need to have your faith in Jesus and make sure you do good works and then God will save you.
23:41: Well, that's a little more subtle, but still a violation of the gospel.
23:45: Right?
23:45: Because it's faith alone in Jesus alone by which we are saved.
23:49: It's the more subtle things that we need to be ready to spot.
23:53: And we can't be theologically discerning if we can't identify what God's word actually teaches so that we have a standard by which to compare alternatives.
24:07: It's not only about the content though, it's about the method.
24:11: Smooth talk and flattery.
24:13: I know a Christian leader who had certain turns of phrase that he would use to flatter people.
24:22: He would talk about a first round draft pick was one of his things he loved to say.
24:27: So-and-so is a first round draft pick.
24:30: I heard him say this a number of times and I quickly put two and two together and I realized he thinks everybody's a first round draft pick.
24:38: He calls everyone that I see him around a first round draft pick.
24:43: I've met some of these people.
24:44: Some of these are not first round draft picks.
24:46: Some of these are not second round draft picks.
24:48: Right?
24:48: Like, it's not true.
24:51: He doesn't genuinely mean that.
24:52: He can't.
24:53: You can't say everybody is above average.
24:57: It's inherently not possible.
25:00: Right?
25:01: And what I learned was don't place value in this man's praise because it's not truthful.
25:10: It's a technique to influence.
25:13: It's a form of manipulation.
25:15: I know another Christian leader.
25:17: It's not what he says, but it's how he says it.
25:19: Every time he speaks for more than a minute or two, he uses emotion to guide his audience.
25:27: Every single time he gets a little choked up at some point in his talk and he sheds a few tears and he has to pull back the emotion.
25:36: And at first glance it's really effective.
25:39: But if it happens every single time, you start saying, what's going on here?
25:44: What is this?
25:46: And it's a way of manipulating his audience.
25:50: If we actually know what the Bible teaches, if we can recall specific verses and passages when we're faced with contrary doctrine, we're going to be a far better place of preparation to stand firm on God's word and to recognize the tricks when they come.
26:07: Matthew chapter 4 tells us about Jesus being led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.
26:15: And when Satan came and tempted Jesus, he presented half-truths and distortions of the truth and Jesus resisted in every instance by quoting God's word and saying, no, no, no.
26:28: God's word says this.
26:30: Therefore, I won't go down the road the way you're pitching.
26:35: One of the most frequent rebukes you find in the Gospels when Jesus is at odds with the religious leadership is some version of critiquing them for not knowing what God's word says.
26:48: Saying, but it is written.
26:50: You don't know what's written.
26:51: It's this, not that.
26:52: It's a big deal.
26:57: I have great encouragement personally from my time in God's word.
27:02: And I commend time regularly in God's word to every one of you.
27:06: But not simply because I find it valuable myself, but because I believe that's what God's word teaches that we need.
27:14: In Titus chapter 1 verse 9, well, Titus chapter 1, we're dealing with the Apostle Paul's instructions to Titus about qualifications for elders.
27:26: He's saying, hey, make sure you set up elders in all these different churches and elders need to meet these standards.
27:31: And one of those standards, verse 9, is this.
27:34: He, the man who would be an elder, must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
27:49: He's saying, they gotta really put their foot down on Christian teaching for two reasons.
27:56: Number one, so that they can perpetuate it, so they can teach it to others, so they can help others know and believe what is actually true of God and God's ways.
28:05: The content of the New Testament, we might say.
28:07: But they also have a responsibility to contradict, even to rebuke those who teach something contrary to what's in the scripture.
28:16: This is the job of an elder, in part.
28:19: It's that important.
28:21: People do not belong in church leadership who are unable or unwilling to do that.
28:29: The reality is that the truth about God, right doctrine, both unites us and divides us.
28:38: It's what binds us together in unity and when we depart from that, it's what causes the separation.
28:45: Shared, right beliefs produce unity amongst God's people and provides a unity for us to work together in shared mission.
28:57: But if we or others stray from sound doctrine, if we treat what we believe as less important than maintaining unity, we forfeit both what we believe and the unity that we sacrificed it to try to get.
29:11: You've got to put first things first in order to get both first and second things.
29:17: If you put second things first, you forfeit first and second things.
29:20: That's a C.S.
29:20: Lewis paraphrase.
29:22: one of the Christian men that I most respect is Pastor Dan Danesburg.
29:32: And one of the things that he rightly has said over and over and over is this, keep your finger on the text.
29:41: Keep your finger on the text of God's word.
29:43: Always test everything by God's word.
29:45: Check it and see if it matches God's word.
29:47: No doubt he learned that from the scripture.
29:52: I think of Acts chapter 17 verse 11 where Paul is describing or sorry, Luke, the author of the book is describing the Bereans, the Christians, the Jewish people who became Christians in the city of Berea and it says they received the word with all eagerness examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
30:16: That is, they were hearing the message about Jesus, they were hearing right doctrine, they were saying, this is exciting but we've got to check it against God's word.
30:23: We've got to see, does this actually match what God has said in scripture?
30:27: Oh, it does.
30:28: Fantastic.
30:29: Let's go that direction.
30:34: In America today, I think there is an excessive emphasis on unity, particularly at the expense of truth.
30:43: and it's possible to go the other way too far and value truth at the expense of any kind of relationships being maintained.
30:53: but the proper biblical middle ground is to watch out for and avoid those who create conflict in the church by contradicting biblical teaching but instead to value both truth and unity and to pursue truth, biblical truth, biblically right doctrine as the basis for our unity with one another.
31:21: Let's pray.
31:27: God, would you help us to rightly handle your word, to increasingly know what you've said in your word, to understand it rightly and to desire wholeheartedly to live it out and to be willing to keep an eye out for and to avoid those who would go in another direction.
31:48: not out of anger or bitterness but out of focus on and love for Jesus and your word and I pray that you would bind us together in unity as we do this.
32:03: Make us one in Christ.
32:08: May the truth about Jesus, the truths that are found in your word, the New Testament apostolic teaching be so fully embraced that we cannot help but be in sync with each other and make us willing to prize your truth even over the supposed unity that we're tempted to sacrifice truth to obtain.
32:35: We pray these things in Jesus' name.
32:37: Amen.