I want to do something fun this morning. Do you remember in grade school, maybe in music class, when the teacher taught you to sing, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”? Then you did it in a round. (I think that’s what you call it.) One side of the class would start by singing, “Row, row, row your boat…” and would continue on but the other side of the class would start right after that with the same thing. Remember? Let’s try that. Can we?
But I want to do it a little bit different. This side will sing, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” while this side sings AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” Okay, ready? C’mon. You know the words. “Back in black, I hit the sack, I've been too long I'm glad to be back” No? Why not? It won’t work, will it? You can’t have one side of the church singing one thing while the other side sings a completely different song. It’s confusing. It makes no sense. Not to mention we aren’t really going to sing either one of those songs in church, are we? Some of you hoodlums might like it but we aren’t.
One group singing one thing while another group sings something else is basically what Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians chapter one. Paul wrote at least two letters that we know of to this church and probably another that got lost somewhere. I’m sure the Corinthians would like to think that it was because Paul loved them so much that he sent them those letters. But actually, it was because they were so messed up! This poor church struggled with everything.
Paul started this church and stayed there for a year and a half and then left it in the hands of Apollos. Apollos was very eloquent. He was a great speaker and a godly man but he had some doctrinal issues that caused some problems at this church but a lot of people really loved him. Can you imagine the difficulties in starting a church 2,000 years ago? There was no New Testament written like we have it. There was no association of churches that could be called if there was a problem or question. Poor Apollos couldn’t email Paul and ask him a quick question. All of that had to be done with letters that might take months to deliver, if they ever got there.
Also, for the church in Corinth, they were surrounded by immorality. Everywhere you turned there were shrines to false idols and temples full of prostitutes and this whole Christianity thing was pretty much brand new so there was a steep learning curve. So, Paul had his work cut out for him with this church and it took at least two strongly worded and very detailed letters to address all the problems.
We are continuing our look at the first century churches and seeing what they did right and what they did wrong. We looked in Acts for the first two to see what they did right and the next two will be in 1 Corinthians to see what they did wrong. The good news is that church unity has always been one of our church’s strong points. The bad news is that Satan tries every day to change that. Every day he is shooting fiery arrows at our church trying to find the chink in the armor. Every day he is waging war against us so every day we have to remember what scripture says and put on the full armor of God. (Ephesians 6)
Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 today and see the very first thing Paul wanted to address with the church in Corinth. 1 Corinthians is between Romans and 2 Corinthians which is next to Galatians in the New Testament and Paul basically starts his letter by saying, “Hey, how ya doing?” And then he starts in on them. Let’s read it in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17.
I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our LORD Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ." 13Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16(Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) 17For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel-not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Let me ask you a question. How many of you drink coffee? For those of you that drink it, how many of you put cream and / or sugar in it? How many drink it black? Next question: which is better, football or baseball? How many would consider yourselves to be a cat person? How many are dog people? Do you like your steak rare, medium or well-done?
Now, if somebody thinks differently than you do about any of those things, are they wrong? Of course not. Well, maybe cat people. No, I’m kidding. No. Just because you disagree with somebody about things that are preferences doesn’t make the other person wrong. They’re just different and that’s a good thing. How boring life would be if we were all the same! There is a difference in being unified and being uniform.
Did you know that Jesus prayed for you while He was here on earth? He did. In John 17, Jesus prayed for all believers and His prayer was that we be unified. You parents know how important it is to be unified in front of your kids. You may disagree about some things amongst yourselves. You don’t always see eye-to-eye about things. But you work it out and tell your kids one thing, not two different things. To tell your kids two different contradictory things is just confusing and unfair. Now the kids don’t know who to believe or what is expected.
As important as it is to be clear in your message with your kids, it is at least as important that a church be clear in its message. This world is confusing enough and some people, in their search for spiritual truth, get too many messages about what is right or wrong or expected or not expected. The church needs to be crystal clear about it.
As usual, Paul says more in one sentence than most people say in a paragraph and in this first sentence, Paul says a mouthful. Look at it again. Verse 10 says, “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our LORD Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.”
I appeal to you, brothers… Stop right there. He used the word “brothers” to remind them that they were a family. We use that word a lot around here. As small as we are in number, Christ Fellowship is a tightknit family of believers. We have a lot in common but not everything. But because we are a family, we share good times and bad times. We help each other; support each other; hold each other accountable when we make mistakes. It’s not always pretty but I don’t know what people do who don’t have a church family to rely on.
There are several layers to pull back on this subject of unity. Obviously, Paul was writing this to one church and wanted that one church to be unified but there is a difference in the unity of a single church and the unity of the global church. As a single church, Christ Fellowship believes and acts in ways that some other Baptist churches might not. That’s okay. But as a Christian church; as a God-fearing, Bible-believing, Jesus-following and Spirit-filled church, we have a small list of very important beliefs that we will not give an inch on.
For instance, all Christian churches ought to be united in our belief that Jesus is the Son of God and died on the cross to provide forgiveness of our sins. Buddha is not included in there. Allah is not part of the way. We don’t give in on that at all. We are united as Christians in that belief. But some Christian churches are Baptist. Some are Church of Christ or Methodist or any number of other things and while some of those guys have some crazy thoughts or habits, at least to us, I expect to see most of them in Heaven.
But Paul is not telling the Baptist to be unified with the Methodist. He is telling that church in Corinth and this church in Lake Bridgeport that we need to be unified as a family of believers. There are a couple of ways that disunity can happen. The first one is probably not thought of very often but the church needs to know and remember its specific calling. Every Christian church in the world is called to make disciples. We are all called to show love and live lives that reflect Jesus. But each specific church has a specific job to do and if a church forgets or doesn’t know what their specific task is then things get messy or watered down or just plain not effective.
Let me give you an example. Who are we at Christ Fellowship called to minister to? I don’t know how or when or who got this started but I believe God laid it on all of hearts that this church is called to the poor, the addicted and the incarcerated. We didn’t ask for that demographic. I doubt that most churches ask for their job or everybody would say they are called to the rich people on the beach or something, right?
But God has called us to minister specifically to the poor, the addicted and the incarcerated. It’s not an easy job with a small crowd but if God has called you to this church, He has called you to that ministry as well. So, what is your part? You need to do your part if we are going to be united.
Now, some churches are called to minister specifically to kids or the military or to young couples or homeless squids or whatever. There is a church for everybody nowadays. Cowboy churches and biker churches and hippy churches and churches that meet in houses. Nothing wrong with any of that but we need to remember that we can’t do it all. Those are good things and good churches but if we try to support or do everything that comes down the pike, we aren’t going to last mentally, physically or spiritually.
I get requests every day in the mail or email from what I am sure are good causes but I don’t bring them to the church because they are not what God has called us specifically to do. Now, I would like to see us work closer with Cates Street Baptist Church in Bridgeport, not because I have family there, but because they do a great work feeding underprivileged kids. Underprivileged is a nicer way of saying poor and so that fits with our job description so maybe we can do that even though, y’all know, I don’t even like kids. 😊
But there is another aspect of this unity that we need to talk about. There is another, more obvious layer to peel back and that is the unity that gets broken when two people in the church disagree about something in the church. I say it’s obvious because that is the layer the world likes to see. They just love it when a church splits over the color of the carpet and they go, “See? See? Those hypocrites! They aren’t the family they said they were. I knew it. I don’t want any part of that religion stuff. Let’s go to the bar.” And Satan laughs his little red head off.
But let me give you a wonderful example of how it is supposed to work. The Lord allowed all this to happen just this week so that I could have a good illustration for this sermon. It started off being a pretty big decision that needed to be made in a hurry and I just made it. I got some wise council but I should have run it past the Leadership Team of the church before I did it but I thought it was the right thing to do and surely everybody would agree.
When it was over, I sent an email to the Leadership Team telling them what happened to keep them in the loop and would you believe it, not everybody thought like I did? I know. It’s crazy. I got an email in response and, I’ll be honest, I thought things might go bad. This is the kind of thing that would go bad in some churches but the email was polite but direct and they gave their reasons for why they believed the way they did and in the end, everything was said in a way that showed love for me, love for the church and love for God.
We all discussed it and came to a consensus in love, although not everybody agreed with what needed to be done. Nobody got upset. Nobody called anybody any names, at least not in any emails I got. No blood was shed. I don’t think anybody even got their feelings hurt and I want to share with you what I believe is the secret to doing that. The way to handle church conflict – and there will be conflict and that’s okay and to be expected – the way to handle it is as soon as something comes up; as soon as you sense any trouble or friction or the slightest difference of opinion, the first thing you need to do is get right with God.
You get yourself right with God. Don’t worry about the other person’s relationship with the Lord. Make sure you are where you are supposed to be in God’s eyes. Proverbs 16:1 says, “To man belongs the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the proper answer of the tongue.” I pray all the time, “Lord, help me to know what to say.” I’m praying it right now. I’m reminded of Nehemiah in the second chapter of his book when the king asks him why he is sad and he tells the king that his hometown of Jerusalem had been demolished and the king then asked him what he wanted.
It says that Nehemiah prayed and then answered the king. It had to have been one of those breath prayers. You know what I mean. You have one instant to pray, “Lord, help me to know what to say.” If you have plenty of time, that’s great to be able to go to God and seek His face but sometimes all you have is an instant. Use it and make sure you are right with God, no unconfessed sin in your life to be a barrier between you and Him, and ask Him for wisdom. He wants to give you wisdom. James 1:5 tells us that so do that first in a conflict. 1 Peter 4:11 says, “If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God.” How are you going to do that without prayer?
The next thing you do is remember something Paul said in Romans 12. He said, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
This can be hard to remember in the heat of a conflict but you have to or you will respond incorrectly. You, as a church member, do not belong to yourself. You belong to me and I belong to you and we all belong to each other. That’s why saying we are family is so appropriate. You might know, though, that sometimes family members can be way meaner to each other than friends or even enemies. That is not how it should be. You have a responsibility before God to protect your family and to speak the truth in love. (Ephesians 4:15)
Talk is cheap. Love is hard. Getting your feelings hurt is easy. Responding with godly words is hard. Wanting to get your own way is easy. Protecting the family can be hard. Do you want to know what causes churches to split? Do you know why there are divisions as Paul called them in verse 10? That original Greek word that Paul uses there is “schismata.” It means division and it is where we get our word schism. Do you know why some churches have schisms?
You can always trace it back to sin somewhere. If there is a divide or division in the church, there is sin in the church. One or both parties have pride or a lack of love or a desire for power that is sinful and Paul says stop it! Before Paul, Jesus said in Matthew 22: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Get right with God and treat your family with love and Christ Fellowship will continue to be a lighthouse in Lake Bridgeport and will continue to minister specifically to the poor, the addicted and the incarcerated.
Today, if you are here and have never joined our little group of hoodlums, I mean family, we would love for you to let us know. The first and really only question I will ask you is, are you a follower of Jesus? I’ll ask you to tell me about it and then, after you have paid your dues and entry fees – no, I’m kidding. It doesn’t cost any money. But as family there is a responsibility. We take seriously the words in red by Jesus that say to love God and love your neighbor. We don’t put up with anything else.
Maybe today, you are here or in Facebook world or you are reading this as a letter and you don’t have a relationship with the Lord, much less a relationship with a church. Life for you is harder than it should be. Where do you go for help and support and unconditional love if you don’t know God and don’t have a church? But you can.
Call on Almighty God today, right where you are and tell Him you want to have His forgiveness for your sin. Tell Him what you have done. He knows but He wants you to acknowledge it and when you do, He is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. Believe in Him and make Him Lord of your life and He will change your life today and will continue to change you until you see Him in Heaven. Do it right now as the music plays.
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