Why do Christians disagree so much?

Well, good morning, any guests that are joining us. And by way of reminder, this is where we’ve been in this series for the last few weeks with a couple of special services in there as well, that we kicked it off asking this big question, can I lose my salvation? Then on August 17th here, we talked about, does God really hear my prayers? And then last week, I was actually over with First Lutheran while we did that special volunteer event.

And thank you for being a part of that for those that did that. And today we’re going to be talking about this question, why do Christians disagree so much? Is that a question worth asking? Do Christians disagree? Yes, they do. Really? Really? Well, there’s a reason to ask this question too, because if you spend any time on TikTok, on Reels, on YouTube, you can see Christians picking each other apart.

And behind that, what testimony is that giving to the world about the unity of the Christian faith? Because outsiders might look at us, and they might wonder questions similar to like to this, like if they all read the Bible, or if we as Christians all read the same Bible, then why are there so many different churches? And if you didn’t know, there’s a few different denominations. Do you think it’s more than 10? More than 20? Okay, this is, this is an image that’s a very, very simplistic breakdown. I was looking this last week to try to find something that would like encompass them all, but it can’t.

Because right now, some estimates online have it at around 33,000 different Christian denominations at this point. But going back to the apostles, Jesus ascending, sending out his apostles, that there was the early church, and there was a unified church. And then over time, that there’s been schisms, and separations, and disagreements, and you can see there that there’s the original church, and then there was the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, they went their ways, then Protestantism, and then there in the lower left hand, Lutheranism, the one true church was restored, right? I’m just curious, if you would, who doesn’t come from a Lutheran background? Has some other background of yours, Roman Catholic, or Assemblies, got something else? Yeah, this church is comprised of those that come from different backgrounds, and you’re welcome.

We’re glad you’re here, right? You can see there that then things started breaking off, and there continued to be more and more disagreements with Lutheran Reform, Presbyterian, Anglican, Baptist, you can go on and on and on. And in all likelihood, even while we’re meeting here this morning, there probably are at least two or three new Christian denominations that just spawned off because people didn’t like the color of the carpet, or the songs that were sung, and so they split off even more. Well, as we get into this, what I want you to see right out of the gate is what we’ve now experienced over the history of all Christendom didn’t just start a hundred years ago, or 300, or 500 in the Reformation, this has been going on since Christ’s ascension.

So if we go into the very first century, Paul is writing a church in Corinth. As he writes in many of his letters, he’s settling disagreements, but it’s so terribly clear when you look at this. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, it says this, I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. I don’t know who Chloe is, but I just think this is great. Chloe’s tattletaling.

Like she’s like, Paul, Paul, these guys over here, they’re disagreeing, and what are they disagreeing about? What are they doing? They’re the church that there’s a resurrected and now ascended Christ, and what are they doing? They’re starting to cling to the teachers. They’re saying, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Peter, or I follow Christ. And Paul asked them this question, is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized into Paul’s name? I highlight that question, is Christ divided, because he’s really getting to the heart of it.

That the intent of the church was to be unified in their belief, and their belief specifically in Christ, in who he is, and what he has done, and to not focus on these other things, on who’s the one teaching you, or who’s the one who baptized you, or who is the pastor of your church? Those types of things. Yet, those are the things that already, do you see it? In the first century, people are starting to cling to those things, because it’s in their nature. It wasn’t just Paul.

Now, the Holy Spirit working through Paul to pen these words, that he was dealing with division, but Jesus actually anticipated it before his death and his resurrection. In the longest recorded prayer in Scripture from Jesus, in John chapter 17, Jesus prays for unity, and he also prays, I find this so unique, he prays for you in this prayer. Let’s see if we can hear it.

Jesus prayed, I do not ask for these only, talking about his disciples then, who would then later become the apostles, but also for those who will believe in me. That Jesus, before being betrayed, before suffering, before being nailed to a tree, he is praying for you, for those that later would believe, and what specifically about you and about me, that they all may be one just as you, Father, are in me and I in you. That they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

What’s the point of the unity that we have? That they would know that we are Christians by our love, that they would see that we are Christians by the unity that we have, and that the glory that you’ve given me, I’ve given to them, and that they may be one even as we are one, I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me, and love them even as you have loved me. Can you see the purpose behind it? That they may know who Christ is, that they may know why God the Father had sent him. Jesus prayed for this, yet do we feel like the Christianity, not only in our country, but around the world, do we feel like it’s united? Yet disagreements and distinctions still are going on to this day, and there continue to be more schisms and more disagreements because it’s part of our very human nature.

How many of you deal with disagreements in your everyday life, right? In your family, in your household, at your places of work, do you deal with disagreements? Yes, yes, Pastor, and we do. Yeah, we do. Yeah, yeah, you do.

I know that you do, and there’s all sorts of disagreements. There’s trite and trivial little things, and then there’s really big stuff. I’ll tell you what, just about a year ago, a little bit less than a year ago, I remember it was a Sunday afternoon, and my family, just like all good Michiganders, are sitting down, and we’re watching our Lions play, right? And then my middle son, he’s watching us all cheer, he’s watching us all be happy about this, and he noticed the logo for the other team, and he loves animals, and in particular, he loves lots like big cats.

At this time, he was really into big cats. Now, it’s reptiles, but back then, it was big cats, and he saw that they were Jaguars. So then, he just started cheering for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and to this day, he has a bedspread, he has a pillowcase, he has a blanket that’s Jacksonville Jaguar stuff in our house, and we’re like, where is this coming from? But there’s something inside of him, and I love it.

It’s just so funny to me, though, like that just because we were cheering for the Lions, he’s like, you know what, what’s the other team? Jaguars. Yeah, I like them. You guys all want to go left? Yeah, I definitely want to go right.

You want to eat this? Yeah, you know what, I want to eat that. That there’s something inside of him that tells me, I think he just might be a lawyer when he gets older, because he likes to argue. There’s that, there’s something inside of him, but we do the same thing.

We get caught up in the trivial and the trite stuff, but there is a place for disagreement. There’s also a reason that these disagreements are happening in our life, not only in our life, but within the Christian church. Here’s just a few of them.

First and foremost, sin. Because of our sinful fallen nature that we’ve inherited, now our human understanding, it is limited, and it is flawed. That when we open the pages of scripture, that we don’t see them with perfect eyes, we don’t have perfect understanding, that we cannot search the mind of God and know all that he knows.

So we have to come in with that and have that sense of humility, that out of the gate, that we certainly don’t know everything, and it’s only by God’s help that we can actually understand who he is and what he’s done for us. Then there’s the issue of authority. What is the ultimate authority when it comes to a disagreement? What’s going to be the thing that settles an argument? And just about every church would say scripture, but we have to see that there’s a difference between believing in scripture alone, and then we get out of this idea of scripture plus.

And that could be many different things. It could be scripture plus some other authority, some other writing, some other tradition. And we often can focus on those traditions and some of those other church bodies that have those types of things, but also understand this, that if you are saying I believe in scripture alone, but when you read scripture you say things like, well that’s not how I read it.

That’s not how I understand it. Then you actually find yourself in the camp of scripture plus, because now you are no longer sitting underneath the authority of scripture, but you might not know it, but you just put yourself above scripture because you’re saying, well I don’t know. I think I view it this way, or I view it that way, and now you’re sitting on your throne above scripture saying, telling scripture what it says, instead of letting scripture interpret itself, going to other texts, going to other places.

And that there is a good and right and proper place to actually look to church tradition. I had a professor who said it this way, if you read a text and you just get this brilliant idea, and you jot it down, and you’re like nobody else has ever said this before, and then you look back in the history of the two millennia of Christianity, and no other Christian in 2,000 years has said the same thing about the text that you’re reading, that you’re saying now, don’t say it. Because in all likelihood you’re wrong.

That the Holy Spirit, we trust that He’s been guiding and unifying the church since the beginning, and He continues to do that, and so if we come up with these new ideas here later, well where are they really coming from? Is it really just our own pride? Part of our inability to read scripture well too, is that we don’t have good lenses to read scripture, or we trip over them. Within our tradition in our church body, we would say there’s law and gospel in scripture. Law that points out our sin, shows us our sin, shows us where we have fallen, really crushes our spirits, because we know in and of ourselves that we are sinners, and we justly deserve God’s punishment.

And then there’s the gospel of Jesus Christ, and all that He’s done, that He’s put on flesh, that He’s taken our sin upon Himself, so we no longer have to face the penalty of our sin, and that He died for us. And now just as He’s been resurrected, if we have faith in Him, we too have the hope of a resurrection as well. But we can mess those things up.

We can look at law, and we can look at rules, and we can say, oh this scripture, this rule that God’s given us in scripture, I’m going to keep following it, and as long as I keep following it really well, it’s going to be a ladder I keep climbing, so I can go from being a JV Christian to a varsity Christian. Distinctions that scripture never makes. Or we look at the gospel, and all the goodness that God has given us in Jesus Christ, all of His mercies, and all of His grace, and we go, great, Jesus died for me, now I can do whatever I want, and live in license.

You can see there, well this would immediately lead to disagreement, because we’re not reading scripture correctly. And that fourth one there, I’m going to teach you a word today, for those that don’t know it, is adiaphra. Say adiaphra.

Adiaphra. Which is a fun one to say, and what it means is that you’re, these are secondary issues. These are things that are not necessary for salvation.

And we take these secondary issues in scripture, something about what can you eat, or should you do fasting, or how should you pray, or what should a church service look like, and we take these secondary things, and then we treat them like they’re the most important things, these essential things, and then it leads to more and more division within our church. And you really have to start with scripture. Scripture points to us what are these essential things.

And again, you can find that, not just because I’m telling you, but you can find it even in scripture. In Acts chapter 17, Paul is on one of his missionary journeys. He’s just went to Thessalonica, and those that were there when he shared the gospel, some of the Jewish leaders chased him out because they did not like the gospel.

The next city he heads to is Berea. And there at Berea, now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, and they examined the scriptures daily to see if these things were so, and many of them therefore believed.

Already, again, in the first century, there are disagreements. Those who didn’t receive God’s word, and those who did. And those who did were Bereans.

This, I love this phrase. I had one pastor told me, always be a Berean. Always go back to scripture.

Look at scripture. Don’t, if there’s something that’s confusing, if you don’t totally understand it, go back to scripture. Search the scriptures.

Read things in context. It’s so very easy in this day and age with our very short attention spans for someone just to pluck out a verse, and twist it, and make it say what they want to say. And if we all just slowed down, and looked at the verses around it, and looked at the chapters around it, and looked at the book, and the context it’s written in, that there would be a lot of less arguments.

These things would be settled. It’s valuable for us to be Bereans. To examine the scriptures for ourselves.

That the Holy Spirit works through those scriptures. I love this from an early church father, Saint Jerome. And he wrote this, the scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning, and deep enough for theologians to swim without touching the bottom.

That it is simple. That the gospel is simple. That once you have that gift of the Holy Spirit, and you have eyes to see the goodness of the gospel, that anyone can understand it.

That you literally just watch the gospel at work. That God’s word, along with the water, combined together. That God is doing an amazing work here this morning through the waters of baptism.

Yet, the other side that we can feel two ways about, I think. That it can be so deep, I don’t want anything to do with it. I just want it to be really simple, and I don’t want to think about the deep things.

Or you can fall in love with the super deep things of theology, because you really like to puff yourself up, and you can point out the wrong in other people. The reality is that the gospel is simple, and it’s beautiful, but we should continually be in awe of it. Because we can never plumb its depths.

That we should continually be in awe of God’s mercies and graciousness towards us each and every week when we gather. Each and every day as you spend time with him, and you’re in his word. This is why there are disagreements too.

That it’s simple, but it’s also deep at the same time. Which then leads us to this. That we have to make a proper distinction ourselves.

That as Jesus himself is praying for unity of the church, is he’s not praying for uniformity. He’s praying for unity. Unity in spirit.

Unity in belief. Unity in the church’s belief, and understanding, and faith of who he is, and what he’s come to do. Not uniformity of what do you practice? What do you sing? What do you read on Sunday? What do you wear? Yet there can still be some uniformity.

We’re gathered right now here on a Sunday morning, right? Are there other churches gathered on Sunday morning? Yeah, I would venture to say so. Do you have to gather on Sunday morning to worship God? No. You do here if you go to Shepherd’s Gate because we don’t offer Monday night or Saturday night, right? But you can.

Like there’s Christian freedom in that. Is there a good reason you could say, oh we gather on the Lord’s day because it’s the day that Jesus was resurrected. So we’re going to celebrate that.

Yeah, absolutely. Do you have to do it? This is where, this is one of those very simple areas if you wanted to make uniformity a law. Like you all have to dress alike, look alike, sing alike, meet alike.

It has to be exactly the same versus the spirit of unity. Where we can recognize that even if there are different traditions, and practices, and rites, and different backgrounds, that we can still pray. That we can pray for those that are like Catholic brothers and sisters that are mourning right now.

Like we just did this morning. As they’re grieving, we’re going to pray with them because they are fellow believers. And then we can come alongside other ministries that are also fellow believers, and we can work alongside them.

Yet we can still be distinct church body ourselves. I think it’s valuable to look at this as well. That there are different types of disagreements.

Like I mentioned, in your everyday life there are small trivial things that can trip you up, and they can be little disagreements that you can push aside. And there are bigger issues where you’re going to stand your ground. And the church is no different.

First and foremost, there’s heresy. That if there is a new teaching that is no longer aligned with scripture, aligned with the creeds that the church has professed for centuries now, that would say something like, there isn’t a trinity, or Jesus wasn’t fully man or fully God. These are right out heresies.

And we would say okay, we’re seeking unity, but you know you’ve actually overstepped bounds, and you’re outside the Christian faith. Underneath heresies, there can be doctrinal error, where someone has a different interpretation of scripture, and possibly secondary issues, but maybe it’s a primary issue, and you’re trying to discern. And third, then there’s just disputable matters.

How do you run your church governance? Are there boards? Is it set up a different way? Are there elders? Like these things, there isn’t a clear-cut answer. Two other helpful lenses that you can put these into, these two categories are, the essentials and the non-essentials. We want us to say, well it’s just Jesus, but it’s just Jesus, and well actually you do need a trinity.

Oh yeah, you do need the two natures of Christ. There’s actually a few things in the bucket of the essentials. If Jesus, I mean this, this happened in the early centuries of Christianity, that there were some that wanted to say that either Jesus was created, or he wasn’t a fully man, or he wasn’t fully God, and if you start going down those rabbit trails, number one, scripture doesn’t support them, and then number two, you actually lose the gospel through them as well.

But then of course there’s a non-essentials, the Adiaphora, the rites, the ceremonies, the songs that you sing, the scriptures that you read, what you’re actually practicing. The problem becomes is when we are trying to treat non-essentials like essentials, you think about it open-fisted and closed-fisted. If you have an open hand, that you’re willing to receive ideas and talk about, maybe there’s some wiggle room, but if you’re acting open-handed with essentials, then you’re not being faithful as a Christian.

That there are certain doctrines of our faith where we would say, you know what, you’ve actually overstepped your bounds, you’re no longer a Christian. On the other side, we can mess things up too, where we’re actually close-handed with non-essential things. Where we look at someone and we go, oh my goodness, you guys did things out of order in your service, or this or that, or you said the wrong thing here or there, and it’s just a rite, or a practice, or a ceremony.

Oh my goodness, you confirmed kids in seventh grade instead of eighth grade, or whatever. And you treat it like a closed-fisted thing and go, you know what, we’re no longer in unity with you and push them aside. It’s important for us as we mature in our faith to be able to discern these things so that we can seek unity.

And we have to recognize this, that disagreements are necessary. They’re a necessary part of life. It is necessary to agree, and disagreements are necessary to preserve the gospel itself.

How many of you like conflict? Just about nobody, right? And if someone did raise their hand, they probably had no one sitting next to them, right? Like they’re just here by themselves because they just love, love picking a fight. But conflict is necessary. Disagreement is necessary.

Not all conflict and disagreement is necessarily sinful. Sometimes it’s helpful because it actually offers you the opportunity to find pure doctrine, to pure understanding, and to actually seek unity. Agreeing to disagree is not the route that you always go.

There’s two examples we’re going to take a look at with our time remaining here. We’re going to look again in scripture, a time when disagreement is necessary, and you have to do something about it, and there is a clear-cut answer, and a time that disagreement happens, and scripture doesn’t give us a clear answer of why this disagreement happened or what God did with it. So the first that we see here, why disagreement is necessary to preserve the gospel.

To give you a little context, Paul’s on a missionary journey again. This is what Paul did, and he’s writing to the Galatians, and he’s recounting a time that he ran into a fellow apostle, Peter, like Peter who stepped out on the water, Peter who professed Jesus, Peter who, you know, denied Jesus as well, but now this early leader of the church who’s there preaching at Pentecost, that Peter. And Paul comes across Peter, and this happens.

When Paul, but when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face. Christians disagreed with each other. He opposed him.

That’s not very Christian-like, is it? Because he stood condemned. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the gospel, with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter, before them all, if you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force Gentiles to live like Jews? So what’s transpiring here? Peter’s already had a vision. Peter already knows that the Gentiles are included.

He saw this sheep being let down, and he sees that now Gentiles are allowed to eat, and you can have, and outside of Jews being around him, what Peter is doing is he’s at the lunch table with all the Gentiles. He’s having pulled pork. He’s having bacon.

He’s enjoying himself, but then he catches wind. Some Jews are coming, and they’re going to see me eat with Gentiles. So he leaves the Gentile table, heads across the lunch room to only sit with Jews.

And at first blush, you could look at something like that. Oh, like he’s just saving face. He doesn’t want to have an argument.

That’s not really that big of a deal. That’s not a primary issue, which table you eat at. That’s secondary.

Pastor Ben just taught me that’s Adiaphora. It doesn’t really matter what table he eats at, does it? Yet what Paul tells him, led by the Holy Spirit, is that you’re not in step with the truth of the gospel. That your actions, what your actions are professing by you no longer sitting with Gentiles and eating with them, is you are saying that, you know what, we have to uphold all these ceremonial laws.

Yep, we still have to do all these things that the Jewish faith did, that we’re saying that Jesus’s sacrifice wasn’t enough, and that we still have to uphold all these things so that we can be good and right with God, that Jesus wasn’t the ultimate sacrifice. Now do you see where all of a sudden that simple action went from being, at first blush, not that big of a deal, like okay, he’s being a little coward, he’s being fearful, to actually being a gospel issue. And that Paul does the thing that he should do as an apostle and as a believer, is that he disagrees with him, that he calls him out in love, but he calls him out so that the gospel would be preserved.

And ultimately, the disagreement too, we look at this at face value, the disagreement looks like it’s between Paul and Peter. But if you take a step back, what you realize, just like any other disagreement that you have, it’s not you versus someone else. That’s how we get stuck with that mentality.

It’s me versus this other person. No, it’s actually you, shoulder to shoulder with another person, looking at a problem and going, what are we going to do about this problem? Or in this case, it’s Peter standing shoulder to shoulder with Paul, and it’s Paul saying to Peter, look at this problem that you have. I’m not asking you to agree with me, I’m asking you, do you agree with God? Which I think is a fair question for us to ask ourselves.

When it comes to unity and disunity within the church, that it’s so easy to get encamped in different backgrounds and church bodies, and we put so many names and labels on things, where it’s us versus them. Rather, I believe it should be, do they, do they agree with God? Do I agree with God? And do I agree with God about the important things, the essential things? Do I agree with God when he talks about himself? Do I agree that he’s holy and just and righteous, and he is set apart from me, yet he is a God who is loving and merciful and kind. Do I agree with God when he looks upon me and what he says about me? That I’m dead in my trespasses, that I’m an enemy of God, that I’ve inherited sin from the first Adam, that there is nothing right in me, that my heart is wicked, and from wickedness flows out more wickedness, and the only thing that can save me is the blood of Jesus, that he would lay his life down for me.

Do I agree with God when he’s on the cross, and he stretches his arms out, and he gives up his last breath, and he says, it is finished? Or do I disagree? And do I live my life like it actually all depends on me, like I want to continue to follow these laws and these rules, and I want to live just like Peter was doing here? And what happens when we disagree with God, just like Peter, is we start to skew and tarnish the gospel. There’s no secondary thing. This is an essential and primary thing.

I think it becomes applicable for us when we look at it in that light, where we ask ourselves that question, in the way that I’m living, in the way that I’m acting, am I acting like I agree with God? And when disagreement comes my way, do I have the humility like Peter to actually receive correction, to receive that from someone else, and to go to Scripture and believe what God actually says? I mentioned there was going to be two examples. That’s the first example where it’s clear-cut. The second example, it’s not clear, and oftentimes I feel like this is maybe the area that we live in.

If it’s not a gospel issue, and it’s worthy, just like we did, to take a look at it, is this an issue that maybe at first doesn’t look like it’s a gospel issue, but when you look deeper is. Here, it’s who’s going on the trip. In Acts 15, after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of God, and see how they are.

Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark, but Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to work. What’s transpired here is that they went on their first missionary journey, John Mark was with them, and before things got really bad, he hightailed it out of there, and he left before things got hard, before they actually went and shared the message. And so now they’re going to start another journey, and Barnabas is saying like, let’s take John Mark with us.

And Paul’s discernment is like, no, I’m not going to take him. He deserted us before. Continuing on, it says this, and there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other.

Barnabas took Mark with him, and they sailed away to Cyprus, and Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. I find this so interesting. Here it is again, here’s a clash, here’s a disagreement, and sometimes what we see in scripture is that when there’s a disagreement, or they need discernment, what they do is they pray, and they fast, and they cast lots, and they try to seek what is God’s will here, what’s the right answer.

And we don’t see anything like that in the text, other than the fact that the brothers commended them, that there were other faithful believers around them that said, you know what, you guys don’t see eye to eye. There’s a sharp disagreement here, and now you’re going to go on two distinct mission trips, and so out of your disagreement, God’s still going to work good that twice as many people might hear the gospel, rather than being together. Now later we read that Paul is in favor of John Mark, and entrust writings to him, and things like that, but here where scripture doesn’t speak, where it remains silent, why do they disagree, and who was ultimately right, we don’t know.

What we do recognize is that God worked through it. But I think there’s another important thing for us to recognize, that we’re seeking unity, but distinction is okay. That distinction is better than disunity.

It is okay for Paul to head this way, and Barnabas to head that way. It is okay that you’re meeting here, and other people are meeting in different churches. It’s okay that we can partner with different organizations that have different beliefs surrounding the non-essential things, and we can still be distinct believers, and we look forward to the day where there’s going to be no more disagreements, where we’re all in the presence of our Savior.

But here in this broken world, to the best of our ability, as we interpret scripture, and as we read it, that we have to have clear consciences with what we read, and that when disagreements come our way, that it’s not that you hate other groups, or you look down on them, but you can be what you claim to be, what you read to be, have integrity, have a clear conscience, to say this distinction is fine. We still believe that we’re part of the whole body of Christ. It’s different than disunity.

It’s not saying that they’re not believers. There’s a theologian back in the 18th century who said it this way, in the essentials, unity. In the non-essentials, liberty.

And in all things, charity. That we can seek unity. We should seek unity in the essentials.

That we should be willing to disagree with others if it’s over the essentials. But if it’s the non-essentials, give them freedom. Give them liberty.

Let them do what they want to do. Let us do what we want to do. Yet in all things, put the best construction on everything.

Give charity when all possible. In the book of Ephesians, it would give us this charge and this calling for us. That we are to walk in a manner worthy of the calling which you have been called.

And we don’t do that by being jerks. That you do so with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of spirit and the bond of peace. That this is the spirit of disagreement.

This is the spirit that should be behind these things. That when attending a different church, when looking at things that you’re not trying to find and pick arguments, rather you’re trying to seek, oh is this a bible-believing church? Does this church believe in the creeds? Does this church believe in the authority of scripture? Oh are these essential things maintained? Because if these essential things are maintained, then the gospel itself is maintained. And when those things aren’t maintained, that you still have these characters of humility, gentleness, and patience.

That you bear with one another. Because as you bear with them, what you’re doing is you’re actually caring for the salvation of their souls. If they are outside the faith, the most loving thing you can do is actually disagree.

Disagree in kindness and love that you might be able to draw them back to their true faith. Because there is an objectively true faith. It goes on in Ephesians and says this, it says, there is one body and one spirit.

One body being the church. There is only one church. The church universal and God knows who’s in that.

Just as you are called to one hope that belongs to your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. And that is ultimately our goal, is to preserve those things that are true.

And so that there can be disagreement. There always going to be disagreement. There’s going to be distinction.

Those things will, they’re still going to plague us this side of eternity. Yet again, like I mentioned, that we do look forward to the day that, that in eternity, that we’re not going to be up there and we’re going to be looking at like, oh see, you interpreted that scripture wrong. You guys looked at baptism wrong.

You guys sung, the way you worshiped was wrong. No, all those things are going to fall away to be in the presence of our one true Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And to have unity in Him for eternity.

That we can cling to those things. So my encouragement to you is, if you’ve been treating open-handed things like closed-handed things, that you would repent of that. That you wouldn’t have a hard heart or critical view of other people, but you, that you would actually be softened to that.

And likewise, if you haven’t thought of these things and flippantly just treat your faith apathetically. You know, it really doesn’t matter because we’re all going to go to the same place in the end, right? No, they don’t. Just as you saw with Paul and Peter, these things do matter.

They do matter for people’s eternal salvation. So we have to live in a tension where we can’t just act flippantly about it, but we also cannot be rude about it. That we have to, in love, guided by truth, guided by God’s scripture, seek unity with all.

Amen.