Do The First Century Teachings Still Apply Today?

Introduction

I appreciate Matt’s song selection being focused on the kingdom of God this morning. That sort of is the background of where I want to head as I dealt with this concept of kingdom really a few weeks ago now. I preached a sermon about kingdom and authority. And the basic concept there, which was kind of leading into where I wanted to ultimately go with this sermon and some future sermons, is the idea that Christ is King. He is the authority, and all is to be submitted to him. And so from that perspective, we then work to figure out how is it that we know what God wants from us? How do we know the right way to live and the right things to do? And where do we go to look for that?

And who do we trust? And I think the answer is relatively simple in a sense. It’s just not something that it’s often talked about in our culture. And just the concept of submitting to authority or understanding authority is not something that in our culture people really want to talk much about. And so it’s something that needs to be discussed. And I want to do that looking at scripture itself to kind of come to some answers to get where we need to go in terms of our thinking and our mentality about this. I appreciate you so much for being here this morning and all the prayers that have been offered on Xander’s behalf. Katie’s at the hospital with him this morning. We’re at the woodlands, so that’s convenient now, more so than the med center.

And so that’s why I’m here this morning. but she’s still there with him. He will head home sometime Tuesday morning. That’s the plan. Unfortunately, Josie is also sick, and so she’s at home with my mom, just not feeling very well. I left last night and just came and saw her for a few minutes before going to get some rest and do some work before being here this morning. So that’s kind of like an added weight when you know your child’s sick and you can’t be with them, and they’re sick and their mom can’t be with them. So I’d appreciate prayers for Josie as well, as along with the ones you’ve been offering for Xander. I want to start this morning with a quote that I think will kind of give us a good indication of the way we need to think as we move forward in the sermon this morning.

And I ran into Martin Broadwell when I was at Bel Air Wednesday night, just an exceptional man, those of you who know him. he’s done a lot of work in a lot of areas, but one of those is on the idea of the Bible and how we see the Bible, and Embry Hill’s website has tons of good material, a lot of which is written by him. and so in talking to him, I went and looked at some of his material, and I found this quote and a couple other things I want to use this morning along with some of the things I’d already worked on. and this is from the 1950s. This statement from a book. He says we are faced in principle with a choice between two versions of Christianity.

It is a choice between one that is wholly God given and one that is partly man-made. We have to choose whether to bow to the authority claimed by the Son of God, or whether on our own authority to discount a part of his teaching, whether to rest content with Christianity according to Christ, or whether to go hankering after a Christian Christianity according to the spirit of our age. We have to choose whether we’ll accept the biblical doctrine of scripture as it stands, or permit ourselves to refashion it according to our fancy. We have to choose whether to embrace the delusion that human creatures are competent to judge and find fault with the words of the Creator, or whether to recognize this idea for the blasphemy that it is and drop it.

We have to decide whether to say that we believe the Bible and mean it, or to look for ways whereby we can say it without having to accept all the consequences. J.J. Packer and a book called Fundamentalism and the Word of God. I think that really accurately states a lot of what I was getting at in the previous sermon about kingdom and Jesus’ authority and the way we interact with that, but also some of the difficulties that we face in our culture. The idea that really there are two Christianities out there. There is the one that actually submits to the will of God and to the words of Christ. And then there is one sort of fashioned in our own image. Where we claim to be Christian, we kind of carry on some Christian morals and ethics and ideas, but then really it kind of becomes what we want in the end.

And that’s a very common problem in our culture. But the question I really want us to get to this morning is the first century teachings, are they still applicable today? I mean, is the Bible actually sufficient? Can we open this book and read from it and understand what God wants? And I think the reason that’s necessary to ask is because when we look around us, it seems like the answer to that is no for many people. Right? There’s reasons why you need something else other than the Bible. And these are some well-held beliefs. Marty kind of lined this out in a way that I thought it was very helpful, so that’s what I’m gonna show you this morning. Some of these are very common, are very normal in our world.

1. Ways People Envision Scripture

Some of them I’ve talked about, some in the past. Some of them are not as much of a problem for many of us, but they’re still present in the world. But here are kind of the various ways that sometimes people imagine or envision scripture and how to use it. There’s some who are very held to tradition, and so you have the Bible, but then you also have the ways we’ve always done things. You know, and so they start to get real worried when maybe we do things a little bit differently than how we’ve we’ve done them in the past. Yeah, you have some who are very much tied to, I guess what I would call the authority of the church. the church really doesn’t have authority.

God has authority, and he grants some authority to elders to carry out his will, his authority, but the church doesn’t really determine anything. But there is certain mindsets out there that’s kind of like you know, the received and understood church doctrine on this and on that. And sometimes it’s very official, like in established type churches, like the Roman Catholic Church. Sometimes maybe it’s a little bit more unofficial, like this is what my church teaches. And what do we mean by that when we say something in that way? There’s kind of this charismatic or mysticism sort of idea, which I think sort of go together in many ways. But this is the idea that you have the Bible, but then the spirit is sort of guiding me directly.

You know, I have what scripture says, but then maybe I have certain feelings or emotions that also guide me, or I understand scripture based on my experiences, the things I feel as I read or as I conceptualize scripture and then work it out in the world. I’m gonna give you some statements in a minute to kind of make sense of some of this, right? Because I know this is kind of big picture. Maybe some of the ones we face the most in our world are these next few. The rationalist is the one who’s to kind of take the Bible, but then you know, we just have a little better knowledge of science and history and psychology and sociology, and so certainly some of those things in the Bible aren’t really accurate.

We’re what we’re gonna accept the things that are. Now, in our advanced intellect and knowledge, we know that some things just aren’t really acceptable anymore. And then the materialists, which the Bible is a really good book and it has good morals, but all that supernatural stuff is kind of hokey, and we’re not going to accept that. And then there’s the one who just wants to accept the things that kind of confirm their biases. Right. So only going to certain passages and scriptures that sort of fit the way that they think or the way they want to live. Now, to some extent, I think there’s a danger in multiple of these for myself and for others, right? It’s very easy to want to go to certain passages to defend what I already think.

And so I have to be aware of that, as I’ve talked about before, and try to work through that and work around that to make sure that’s not the way I’m viewing scripture. But I think the bottom line here, what I want us to see is these things are real. They’re in the world. Some of them very prominently so, some of them proclaimed boldly. For example, the ecclesiasticist. I mean, that is a way of viewing God and the word of God and life, right? That you have the scripture, you have tradition, and you have the authority of the church. And particularly within the Roman Catholic Church, you have one man who speaks for Christ and is telling people the way they should do things. And of course, those things change over time.

2. The Apostles Were Given Special Authority

And part of this is sort of the idea of apostolic succession, which I want to at least reference a little bit later. Why is that important? And why do people some people today feel the need to say that they have this apostolic succession that their leaders have kind of come from the line of apostles? Why would they make that claim or seem to think that’s really a big deal? I think the simple answer there is that everyone knows who reads scripture, and this is what I want us to look at this morning. Everyone knows who reads scripture carefully that the apostles were given special authority by Jesus Christ. And so the bottom line of all of this, right? I and I know we have different age groups, and we have people with different experience with scripture and their understanding of scripture.

The bottom line of all of this is the New Testament is written by inspired writers, either the apostles themselves or those who were connected to apostles, and it was recognized not because the church says this is the word of God, but because they realized it was an inspired writer who wrote this book, right? And so people know these were people sent by God. They were messengers of God who wrote, they were moved by him to write his will. And so these apostles were granted this special authority. And we have to be able to take the Bible on its own terms, not on all the things we just looked at before, you know, tradition and rationalism and all of that. No, the Bible speaks, and I understand we’re going to talk later about interpretation in future sermons, and so it does involve interpretation and understanding how to read scripture and all of that, but there needs to be this fundamental reality that we take scripture on its own terms.

That I’m not learning truth with scripture plus some kind of feeling I get, or the Spirit talking directly to me in ways that are different than what Scripture says, or those sorts of things, right? Or that I need science or psychology or something else to then make me really understand truth in terms of what God wants. Right? All of these things, you know, math and science and all that, it’s all valuable things. It’s part of God’s creation, so I’m not against those things. It’s just when we begin to think that we are smart enough to then dictate what is real and what is true, apart from what God has said, or particularly in opposition to what God has said. Are really we really in a place, as J.J.

Packard said, are we really in a place where, as the created, we can question the creator? Are we really competent to make judgments about whether the things he has said are actually true or not? And the simple answer there is no, we’re not. And he has given the apostles the authority to then tell us what we are to do as his people. So I want to look at a few passages that kind of give this indication. There’s more here than we can even look at this morning, much more. originally, don’t get too worried, but originally I did at least two sermons on this. So I tried to compact it. There’s there’s parts of this that you know I decided I want to show you some quotes from early church fathers, but ultimately they’re not really that important.

So I don’t want to spend 20 minutes on it. It’s just showing that they understand this principle too. so let’s read Acts chapter one, the first few verses, and we’ll kind of start from there and see what is said here. It says in the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You heard from me.

For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. I want to make a statement real quickly about this idea of you will be my witnesses. And it would take time in a future sermon to discuss this further. It’s not that the testimony or witnessing is not a phrase or something that we typically use among our people.

I’ll just say it that way. But it is a very common sort of idea in the religious world. But we need to understand that when he says, You are my witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth, they have a very special witness that they offer. This is not like a preacher down the street who says, I’ve been given a ministry and I am witnessing for Christ. Great. That’s a that’s amazing that we do that we can look at scripture. Now these men have a very specific role that they were chosen for, as says said right here in Acts chapter 1. They were going to bear witness to the world, not to just Jerusalem, but to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth.

It was the job of the apostles, and they were hand selected for this purpose as chosen witnesses with authority, given authority by Jesus Christ to speak on his behalf. And this is done in a very special way, and this concept can be traced actually through the book of Acts. As it’s stated numerous times. Again, later on in chapter one, it mentions them being witnesses of his resurrection in verse 22, and kind of this special role that Matthias was also brought into. And so their witness is a little bit different than me saying, I’m going to bear witness.

3. Guided Into All Truth

They did the work to make this happen on Jesus’ behalf in Jesus’ name, which when we say something like in Jesus’ name, we mean by his authority. That’s what that means. They went out and they did all of this by his authority. And so they were chosen specifically by Jesus. And not only that, not only were they chosen, but they were also guided into all truth. Now, sometimes these verses are used in this section in John 14 through 16, these three chapters. And people will use them to kind of apply them to modern ideas and modern thoughts like the Spirit guides us into all truth. But we need to be good Bible students and realize what’s actually happening here. This is a conversation that primarily is happening between Jesus and his apostles.

And so when we get to the middle of chapter 16, he says in verse 12, this is John 16 in verse 12, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak.

Therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. They are going to get this special message, this special helper, the Holy Spirit, to guide them into all truth. And this is something that was going to be done for the apostles. He’s not speaking here something that he does for me or for you. This is the very specific thing that was going to be done for them. For example, you just work your way back up in verse 7. it says, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go away, I will send him to you. You know, we’re not with Jesus.

4. Teaching Them to Observe All That I Have Commanded

And Jesus is not having a conversation with us where he then is going to leave and then send something to us afterward. No, this is a very specific circumstance and setting that involves these twelve men that he chose for this purpose. Right? So we see that very clearly if we can kind of see the whole context of what’s happening here in John chapters 14 through 16. And then similarly, we use Matthew 28 quite often to talk about our role and the commission we have to make disciples and all of that. And that’s a great secondary application. But the primary application here is what the apostles were commissioned to do. Notice the language here again. Jesus makes no mistake about his authority and his power and how he’s granting it to them to do their work.

It says in verse 16, now the eleven disciples went to Galilee. Judas has already betrayed him, and he’s out of the picture now. To the mountain which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Some interesting thoughts there that Jesus gives them. You know, we have some who kind of view scripture in a sort of critical way.

Well, you know, it’s 2024, you know, and you still believe all these things written 2,000 years ago. You know, we have we have to abide by the things that were written to people in the first century. You know, it’s interesting that Jesus, as he makes this statement to these people, he says, I’ve been, I have all authority in heaven and on earth, and your job is to go and to teach, make disciples and teach them all that I’ve commanded you. But then he throws this little thing here at the end, and I’m with you even to the end of the age. So here’s the thought. If suddenly the apostles’ doctrine and teaching is no longer applicable or valuable for us today, when did it stop being that way?

I haven’t been along around a really long time. I am 42, so a little bit. I was born in 82. And so that whole thing, like, you know, it’s 2024. The older you get, the more ridiculous you realize that sounds. You know, like I remember it was 1997, you know, it’s 2004. That was 20 years ago now. You know, we think we’re so with it and we’re so smart and we know so much, and kind of as we move along and we think we’ve progressed. And I just have to think when we think that way, God’s not very impressed. You know, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day to God. He’s not impressed with the period of time in which I’ve lived and what I have learned or think I’ve learned over that period of time.

But his word is constant. And what he has revealed is still relevant and still applicable. And the authority that he gave to his apostles still remains today. It didn’t suddenly just evaporate at some point. And so when we have some of these thoughts, some of the phrases or questions, statements that we hear, and I’m about to give you some of them that sort of relate to what I talked about before, the traditionalists or the ecclesiasticists or the charismatic, things like I know what the Bible says, but in my heart I know God wants me to, whatever the thing is. Or I just don’t believe a loving God would allow people to be condemned. The rationalist, who’s they think they’ve kind of figured things out. How could this work philosophically?

There’s a lot of philosophical problems, even with that concept or idea. Or maybe here’s one. This is one directly from Marty. I didn’t want to get myself in trouble, so I just quoted him directly. I’ve been in the church of Christ for 60 years, so don’t go quoting scripture to me.

And who are you to bring up some different thought from what this passage means or that sort of thing? I just can’t accept the story of the flood. It’s just not scientific. The Bible speaks in different ways to different people. I mean, have you heard these kinds of statements? You know, they line up with all the things I showed you before about the various ways people view scripture and how to think through it. The teachings of the church are out of date with our culture. I only listen to the words of Jesus. You know, the things in red. That’s kind of a popular one. It sounds really good. You know, like I’m just gonna go look at the words of Jesus, and that’s gonna tell me what I need to know.

That’s great. I mean, the words of Jesus are amazing and awesome. But you know that his apostles also are giving us the words of Jesus. Because that’s exactly what he said. He said he was going to go away, and the helper was going to come, and he was going to guide them all to all truth. And he was not going to speak on his own authority, but he was going to take that which was Jesus’s and give it to them, and they were going to speak it. So that’s Jesus speaking through his apostles. These are important ideas or concepts when we read through scripture. It’s not like when Peter says something, it’s less weighty than what Jesus says. No, because Jesus is giving authority to Peter to speak on his behalf.

That’s why we have this. Right? He’s moved by the Spirit, Peter says in 2 Peter. Like this is why this happens, because those who are inspired, they’re moved by the Spirit to speak the words of God so that we understand what God’s will. Or the Bible’s a good moral book, but all those miracle stories are just made up. I mean, you can sort of see how this fits in with our culture and our time, the spirit of the age. We were very cynical, we were very rational. We have to think through which I’m I’m great with thinking through things and using logic and all of that. But when that takes us somewhere we start denying what God has revealed to us, we’re going in directions that are not positive.

5. The Apostles Understand Jesus Has Given Them Authority

And so are we going to accept Christianity and the authority of Christ, or are we going to reshape it to our own fancy, as the man asks? Are we going to change it to what we want, or are we going to accept it for what Jesus has actually revealed to us? The next step in this is that the apostles also understand that Jesus has given them authority. Right? I mean, they claim this. So this is not just we’re making a bunch of stuff up. I mean, this is what they claim themselves. You know, as they’re writing these books, they are claiming to have the authority of Jesus Christ. They talk about them being appointed, about them receiving the message, about bearing witness of Jesus and then giving that message to other people.

And so we have texts like Romans chapter 1 and verse 5, where Paul understands his mission, his apostleship, his ministry, then is to bring faith to all nations. Right? I mean, he specifically went to the Gentiles, which is part of what he’s referencing there. But this is part of his apostleship, his mission, a very specific mission that he was given by the Lord Himself. And so when we’re reading the writings of the Apostle Paul, they are the teachings of Jesus Christ that he has given through the Apostle Paul. Paul was chosen, he was elected to do this work. And with this understanding, the apostles realize they are the foundation of the church. I can’t go to all these verses this morning, but you can go read Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 20 and following and realize they realize that the prophets and the apostles, they are the foundation.

Everything else is built upon that, upon their message of Jesus Christ. Here’s an interesting one. I think the apostles realize they have the ability to hand down traditions to speak authoritatively on what should be done to honor God and to honor Christ Jesus. They have that authority from Jesus Himself. And so they say things like, I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you then, be imitators of me. Paul says this multiple times, be imitators of me. This is 1 Corinthians 14, verse 17. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them and every and teach them everywhere in every church.

And so they have a standard teaching. I mean, when Paul goes from place to place, he’s not teaching one thing one place and another thing somewhere else. There are certain things he’s teaching the same way everywhere. Now, certainly there are cultural matters that depending on the places you are, good judgment or wisdom might be applied a little bit differently in principle. But the basics of the gospel, he’s teaching the same way everywhere. A few chapters later in 1 Corinthians 7 and verse 17, he says, This is my rule in all the churches, right? That you continue to live in the life that you’re in, right? That’s the subject there. If you’re single, you can stay single, if you’re married, you stay married. If you’re a slave, you can remain a slave.

If you’re free, you remain free.

And he teaches the same thing in all the churches. It’s the same message. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 15, he says, Stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word, or by our letter. And so they had the power to enforce traditions. These are traditions that are handed down from God and from his workers, not human tradition, not things that I come up with or you come up with, or things we become comfortable with, and we think that’s the way it should be done, or that sort of thing. No, these are the things that the apostles are giving to these early Christians about how they are to honor God, how they are to serve him, the way they’re supposed to live in a variety of ways, and we’re not even getting to the details this morning, just the basic concept that the apostles and what we’re reading here, they are authorized to do all of this in the name of Jesus Christ, by his authority.

The early church recognized. They recognized how this was supposed to work. And so I’m just going to give you a couple quick references here from some early church fathers. Clement of Rome makes this statement that the apostles received the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? This is the means by which we are getting the message. It was sent through them. Similarly, Polycarp, right? These are very early people, like second century, some even going into the first century, obviously. He says here that the apostles, they preached the gospel unto us. They’re the ones who were inspired, they were given the message, and they went out and they declared this. And these early Christians recognize this.

Now, this is a warped sense of authority. They want to have the idea that the apostles’ authority continued on over the ages. And so, as there’s no evidence of this in scripture, by the way, but this is the concept because this gives you authority. Right? And then you can kind of take one of those other views of how you can take the Bible plus something else and kind of adapt and change to culture or to biases or whatever it is. What we see in scripture and what is claimed by those in scripture is that the apostles have the authority of Christ. They speak the words of Christ. And if that’s true, and if we believe it, and there’s a whole other discussion that we’d have to get into do we believe in God?

Do we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? And those are some other discussions that are valuable in our age. But if we believe that, if we accept those things as true, then we must accept that what’s in here is extremely important to read through and to understand and to know and to accept on its own terms, not based on how I feel about it, not based on my experiences in the world.

6. The Same Message in All the Churches

But it is what God and His Son Jesus Christ felt was necessary to reveal through the inspired writers in these books that have now been passed through millennia to us. My experiences will go away. As valuable as they may be to me, in a hundred years, nobody will care about my experiences or what I think the Spirit said to me, or any of those kinds of things. They won’t, they won’t carry on. But the words of Christ, and the words of Christ through his apostles who were chosen for this ministry and this work will carry on. And it is these that we have to be committed to appeal to. And along those lines, let me just make one other point here that I think is extremely important because one of the things I sometimes hear is, well, just look at the church.

They’re all the same, you know? They all just do the same thing. I mean, that sort of makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, if our criticism of Christ’s church and the places we go is that there’s a lot of similarities, I think we kind of have the point without realizing it. Then we already looked at these texts where Paul is saying, hey, everywhere I go, I say the same thing to all the churches. Now, some of this depends on what you mean by this. I’ve been to a lot of churches in my life. Growing up, went all over the country, doing all sorts of things with my family, and we met a variety of places, and there’s kind of some core things that are pretty much done the same, and then there’s a lot of things that are done very differently.

But it’s kind of this like broad overview criticism to kind of denounce the legitimacy sometimes of what’s happening. But ironically, if we actually understand scripture, it should be just the opposite. I mean, shouldn’t if these men really are chosen by Jesus to carry out his mission, to be his ambassadors, to relay his message to the world, to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth, I mean, shouldn’t that message be consistent? And the same sorts of things being done? I mean, at the core, maybe not exactly how we carry every single thing out. God has given us lots of freedom about how we do various things. And so maybe certain things are done different ways, and that’s fine. He’s okay with some of that, but the core things he wants and what he has revealed to us through his messengers, it’s the same.

Why are we shocked? That if we go here or to Dallas or to Nashville or to Los Angeles or to wherever we go and we meet with people who are God’s people, why would we be shocked that things are very similar in each of those places? The apostles agree. They’re the foundation. Everything is built upon what they were doing. And for 2 Peter chapter 3, there’s a couple actual statements here that are relevant, but I want to focus mostly on the first part of that text.

And it sort of relates to what I’m saying here about consistency and how this message is going to go out to the world. He says, This is now the second letter I’m writing to you, beloved, and both of them I’m stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets. So the holy prophets had a consistent message in the Old Testament, right? And the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles. I mean, Peter wants them to remember the commandment that came through the apostles in the very beginning. A text we’re very familiar with in Acts chapter 2. I mean, what is it that begins happening almost immediately? They continued in the apostles’ doctrine and the breaking of bread, fellowship, and prayer.

I mean, that’s the apostles’ doctrine is extremely important if that is the thing that is first mentioned that they continued in. And it’s going to carry out and be consistent throughout the world. And in Paul and others remind them in Galatians, hey, if you start preaching a different gospel, you start adhering to things that I have not told you, that’s to be accursed. If someone comes along, they start teaching you other things, get rid of that. That’s not the gospel. It’s a different gospel, which is not a gospel at all. It’s not good news. When people are going against the things that we revealed. Paul says, even if we ourselves bring a different message, you should reject that. We’ve already revealed the truth to you. And as John recognizes, there’ll be people who do reject that in 3 John.

He’s dealing with that exact situation. He says, I’ve written something to the church. John is a messenger of Jesus Christ. He is an apostle. He’s one who is sent to declare God’s will. And he’s dealing with people who are rejecting that. Really in 1 John as well. But in 3 John, he mentions this I’ve written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, he’s made himself the authority. That’s what’s happening here. He likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. John realizes he has authority. He has the authority of Christ. And that authority that he has been given, just like Peter and Paul and the other apostles, is going to be a consistent message that’s going to go out into the world.

And so with that understanding, we should operate in Scripture. With that understanding, we need to be committed to Scripture on its own terms, and the fact that these apostles are the foundation of everything that we have. And of course, there’s going to be need for good interpretation and reading carefully through scripture and all of that. And unfortunately, as part of that will happen. People may get different ideas about some of that, but the message does not change. Right? The apostles have revealed it to us in a way that we can understand, and the fundamentals are not different between each apostle. Peter goes on to say in chapter 3 that Paul has written some things.

And people twist them to their own demise. Peter is familiar with what Paul says, and Paul is familiar with what Peter says. In fact, Paul, as he’s talking about Peter and some of the other apostles in Galatians chapter 2, he says, we’re teaching the same thing. I’m just going to the Gentiles, and they’re going to the circumcised. It’s the same message, it’s consistent. And so as God’s people in 2024 or whatever age it is, it doesn’t really matter. We need to have this fundamental understanding that Jesus gave authority to the apostles. They speak on his behalf.

Conclusion

And to teach them to observe all things I’ve commanded you, and I’m with you to the end of the age. That means it’s still relevant in 2024. And so we have to decide. Which Christianity are we going to choose? The one that espouses to the authority of Jesus Christ and what he says? Or to the spirit of our age, changing it as we see fit to make us comfortable. I think we have a group here that wants to do the first. And it could be this morning that you are among people who want to do that. You’re with that idea, but you haven’t done it yet. And you realize you need Jesus Christ, you want to follow him, you know he is a righteous ruler. He is a king that loves you and cares about you, and he wants to do things for your best interest, unlike rulers in the world and the leaders of the world who often are for their own self interest.

Jesus is not that. We talked about that in the past. And he wants to save your soul and he wants to reunite you in your relationship with God. And if you want that this morning, we’re told how we can do that. We give our lives to him. We’re baptized into Jesus Christ for the remission of our sins and we’re raised up a new person. We’re going to be shaped after the image of Christ. And we’ll be adopted as a son of God. And we will be fellow heirs with Jesus Christ, ready to be glorified with him in the end. Can we help you with that this morning? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing together?