Man Builds His Church

Introduction

This morning’s lesson emphasized Jesus’ great plan to build his church, a people loyal to him, and we’ve sung about in this last song about the building that we’re doing as a part of his building. A people loyal to him, birthed into his kingdom, not by heritage, as was Israel of old, because they were of a certain nation, but birthed out of our desire to be loyal to the risen king and submit ourselves to his rule. More on that as we continue tonight. But tonight we’re going to more focus on what more commonly occurs as God’s intention and design for his people is corrupted and distorted, and the result is not the church that Jesus has built, where he is the king, but it becomes a religious organization where man has determined boundaries and rules and beliefs that are not consistent with what the New Testament teaches.

1. Teaching as Doctrines the Precepts of Men

And I thought of a text that clearly displays the attitudes that lead and foster such division that we see in our time. And that text is Matthew chapter 15. And I think it’s important that we keep in mind as Jesus addresses the religious leaders of the first century. These are people who believe they are loyal to God. They are not atheists. They do not neglect worship. They are a worshipful people who believe that they are following God. In fact, they’re all up in arms because they believe Jesus and particularly his disciples are not honoring the covenant God has given to Israel. They believe that the disciples are violating the instruction of the Old Testament. They came to Jesus and said, Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?

They saw the tradition of the elders as consistent with Old Testament teaching. Just further elaboration on God’s truth. He says, they don’t wash their hands when they eat bread. And he answered them and said to them, And why do you why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? Jesus addresses the problem that the Pharisees had in answer to their complaint. You violate in what was indeed a violation of Scripture for the sake of your tradition. Or it gives an illustration. God says, honor your father and mother, and he who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death from the book of Deuteronomy. But you say, this is what you say, this is your tradition. Whoever shall say to his father or mother, anything of mine that you might have been helped with has been given to God.

It’s been set apart for God, and therefore I can’t assist you, which really means I won’t. He is not to honor his father or his mother. That’s the tradition. And thus you invalidated the word of God, your responsibility to your parents for the sake of your tradition. You have set the commandments of God on end and made them opposed to one another, and you are transgressing your responsibility to your parents by this rule that you’ve made up. And then he goes further and says, You hypocrites, they play a part. They are perceived to be religious. They see themselves as religious, but all they’re doing is playing a part. They do not sincerely belong to God. Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you say, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me.

And this was true of God’s people in the days of Isaiah, going back to that book in a little bit tonight. They honor me with their lips. They’re still worshipful, claim to be loyal to me, but their heart is not consistent with my thinking. Their heart is far away from me, but in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines. The precepts of men. And after he called the multitude to him, and he said to them, hear and understand. Look, the Pharisees are all concerned about ritual cleansing and defilement, and what they don’t understand, that defilement is not about your hands and about the things you eat. And Mark provides further elaboration to a Gentile audience by explaining thus he declared all foods clean. They’re concerned about ritual and ceremonial defilement, and he says, but real defilement is what takes place on the inside of a person.

It is not what enters the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth that defiles the man. And in this case, the setting aside of God’s truth for their traditions, which they exalted as more important. Then the disciples came and said to him, Do you not know that the Pharisees were offended? And let me let me just say that when truth is spoken, sometimes people are offended. And that’s okay. Jesus offended them because their lives stood in contradiction to truth. Sometimes people get offended when truth is taught. But he answered and said. And this is why he spoke the offensive words to them. He says, Every plant which my heavenly father did not plant shall be rooted up. Let them alone. They are blind guides of the blind.

And if a blind man guides a blind man, both the blind guide and the one who follows the blind guide, both fall into a pit. We need to be careful who we’re following, this passage would tell us. And so I want to focus particularly on this phrase. They teach as doctrines the precepts of men. The church of the first century, we read through the epistles of the New Testament, they’re already struggling with the precepts of men. Individuals who are influencing them to embrace teachings that are not consistent with the doctrine of Christ. Almost every, if not every epistle, from Romans onward is dealing with false ideas that originate with men that aren’t consistent with the covenant of Christ, that are influencing believers and attempting to take them away from truth.

2. The Rise of Denominations

Particularly 1 John comes to mind. Where John says, He who listens to God listens to us. The apostles. We’re communicating God’s message, and yet there are antichrists that have gone out into the world. And that’s one that comes to mind. We can talk about Galatians and the other epistles that Paul wrote, where there’s obviously influences that are coming to bear. So what do we see now in our religious culture in our time, two millennia later, is the rise of denominations. When I first started preaching 30 years ago, I got this book called The Handbook of Denominations. I was looking in my library. For some reason, I don’t think I kept it. I’ve given that to someone else. But the handbook of denominations, and they’ve changed that year by year as new denominations came.

And preachers had just changed the number they were using in pulpits when they were preaching on denominationalism. The number had just changed, I remember, from there’s 250 denominations that relate to Christ, and now there are 400. And so that’s the number I started with 30 years ago. That book, Handbook of the Denominations, I don’t know if it’s still in print, but if it is, its size is going to be massive. Because in the last three decades, the number of denominations has proliferated to nearly 40,000, and it is expected by those who know such things, but by the year 2025, that’s only a decade from now, there will be approximately, and it becomes almost impossible to count.

Denominations. That is different religious sects that can be identified different from this group and this group. 55,000. How do we go from 430 years ago to 55,000? We’re talking about 400 denominations in the nearly 2,000 years of the church’s existence. And in the last 30 years in our lifetime, we’ve gone from 400 to 50, or going to be nearly 55,000 if the Lord allows the world to say. What’s been going on? I’ll tell you what’s been going on. Attitudes toward the Bible have changed dramatically. Ignorance of the word increases. Homes are more secular and fragmented. Apathy proliferates. And that’s just some of the symptoms that lead to the fragmentation of religious people who claim to be devoted to Christ. Certainly, as Paul told Timothy in the last days, perilous times would come.

And some of the things that he lists in 2 Timothy 3 is that they would be lovers of self. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Conceited, selfless, reckless, he says in that list in 2 Timothy chapter 3. That’s where people are. And with the turbocharge. In the year 2014. They are lovers of themselves and lovers of pleasure. Families have disintegrated, and thus there is a vacuum of leadership, a vacuum of spiritual leadership in the home. Godliness is vanishing. Respect for God and his word is lacking. Self rules. And thus, religion is invented, and that’s what this is. Like the Pharisees and their traditions. Religion is invented on the basis of man’s whims. Somebody comes along and says, I want to do church this way.

Man builds his church. This is what I like. This is a part of, I guess we sign on to the fact that I believe God is the creator, that this is God’s word, but beyond that, it’s sort of a smorgasbord. I can pick and choose. These are the parts I like, these are the parts I don’t like. This is the way we’re going to do salvation. This is what we believe constitutes salvation. Or in a lot of denominations today, it’s pretty much a free-for-all. You can believe pretty much whatever you want. But there is something that distinguishes them from another group, thus, another denomination is born. You see all kinds of non-denominational churches rising up. And basically, someone gets an idea of how they want to do church, and they start one.

3. Denominationalism Is a Flawed System

And in this maze of churches that are supposedly serving Christ, the consumer is just, he doesn’t know where to look. He doesn’t know where to turn. So you have people buying into all of these different religious groups. And yet, as we have just sung tonight, God has given us instructions so divine and complete about how God would have us live. And we need to sign on to those. Now, denominationalism is a flawed system. Buddy Payne shared this quote at the Southside Lectures that, well, I want to emphasize that all of this originates with man. Buddy Payne shared this quote, and I thought this was really good. This was Gerald Brower’s definition of denominationalism. And I can’t believe you can define something so complex in one short paragraph.

But he does, and I think he does a tremendous job. Denominationalism is the system and ideology founded on the division of the religious population into numerous ecclesiastical bodies, each stressing particular values or traditions, and each competing with the other in the same community under substantial conditions of freedom. Now that’s a lot of big words. But break it down phrase by phrase, it’s not that difficult. You have a religious system that’s divided, and this religious population separates into numerous distinct bodies, what I’ve just described, each stressing, again, the things that they value, or the traditions that have come along in these religious groups. They each have their own idea, various stances on what it takes to become a Christian, conversion, certainly various stances on morality, worship, how we’re going to approach God in worship, the organization of the church.

There’s a lot of variances in regard to that. And the work of the church, what a church is and is not going to do as a collective entity. That’s just the beginning. And there are many variations in just those five categories. And so each one stresses particular values and traditions, and each of them are trying to appeal to the consumer. We’ve got something that you might be interested in. And it’s competition. Because the more people you get, more money. And the more money you have, the more things you can do, and we’re going to satisfy the consumer. What does the consumer want? They want a certain feeling. More importantly, they want fun and entertainment. Something that they can feel good about. What kind of programs are you providing?

And so there’s the appeal made to the consumer, but then I like this last phrase, under the substantial conditions of freedom. Now, that’s new probably to about the last 20 years or so, and what that means is you can do religion your way, and I’ll do religion my way, and we’ll all get along. We just have different ways of looking at this and approaching this, but we’re not going to be real critical of people who do it differently than us. And so nobody gets really upset. You shouldn’t question or judge the beliefs of other people. Now, you think the Lord’s people aren’t affected by this? Most of you have heard of the popular Christian writer, Max Luceto, who, when he first bursts onto the scene, actually it was his second book, I believe.

No wonder they call him the Savior, which I still believe is the best thing he ever wrote. He begot very popular. And he preached for the Oak Hills Church of Christ in San Antonio, Texas. Well, it wasn’t very long before it was no longer the Oak Hills Church of Christ. It was just the Oak Hills Church. And while you don’t have to have Church of Christ on the sign, and I’ll be the first one to say that, I get worried and concerned where people are wanting to take of Christ off the sign. I mean, I want to be of Christ. But they’re taking that off the sign to again appeal to the consumer, because there’s people have bad attitudes about that name because of people that they’ve run into that seem to stress that God cares about the things we do in religion.

And before you know it, not only had of Christ been taken off the sign, but there was a pulpit swap. Not with another preacher of a quote, church of Christ, but with the Baptist church.

And so when Max was questioned about that, I’m not sure if this was his specific response to that, but his book that he would write in 1996 says as much, and I’ll quote from that in a moment. We’re all on the same boat, just perhaps different decks of the same boat. Now, in his book, The Grip of Grace, he wrote, God has enlisted, and I have this book in my office, God has enlisted us in his navy and placed us on his ship. The boat has one purpose to carry us safely to the other shore. But here is our concern the disharmony of the crew. When we first boarded, okay, we’re on the boat, we first boarded, we assumed the crew was made up of others like us.

But as we wandered these decks, we’ve encountered curious converts with curious appearances. Some wear uniforms we’ve never seen, sporting styles we never witness. Why do you look the way we do? Or the way you do, we ask them. Funny, they reply. We were about to ask you the same thing. The variety of dress is not nearly as disturbing as the plethora of opinions. There is a group, for example, who clusters every morning for serious study. They promote rigid discipline and somber expressions. Serving the captain is serious business, they explain. It’s no coincidence. But they tend to congregate around the stern. There’s another regiment deeply devoted to prayer. Not only do they believe in prayer, they believe in prayer by kneeling. And so they’re always at the bow of the ship.

Oh, it’s very clever. Get it? Bow.

And then there are a few who staunchly believe real wine should be used in the Lord’s Supper. You’ll find them on the port side. It’s good, isn’t it?

Still another group has positioned themselves near the engine. They spend hours examining the nuts and bolts of the boat. They’ve been known to go below deck and not come up for days. They are occasionally criticized by those who linger on the top deck, feeling the wind in their hair and the sun on their face. It’s not what you learn, those topside argue. It’s what you feel that matters. Now, do you see where he’s going with this? Now they’re all on the same boat. Oh, how we tend to cluster, he says. But here you go. Some think once you’re on the boat, you can’t get off. Others say you’d be foolish to go overboard, but the choice is yours. He’s got people who believe and once saved, always saved on the same boat with those who don’t.

Some believe you volunteer for service. Others believe you were destined for the service before the ship was even built. Predestination. Some predict a storm of great tribulation will strike before we dock. Others say it won’t hit until we safely reach shore. Premillennialism. There are those who speak to the captain in a personal language. There are those who think such languages are extinct, speaking in tongues. There are those who think the officers should wear robes. There are those who think there should be no officers at all. There are those who think we are all officers and should all wear robes. Oh, how we tend to cluster. Do you see what he does with that illustration? He gets all of these people with various beliefs and denominations all on the same boat.

They just don’t see it the same way we do. But we’re still on the same boat. And that reflects the modern mood. Maybe it’s not possible to arrive at the same beliefs. Jesus argues differently. In his prayer in John 17, hours before his betrayal. He prays for his disciples and all who would believe in him through their word that they may all, that they may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they may be in us, and the world may believe that thou didst send me. He prayed that his disciples be one. But in Lucato’s world, the way you become one is just acknowledging we’re all in the same boat, but all believing something different. That wasn’t working in the New Testament epistles.

4. Every Plant Not Planted Shall Be Rooted Up

That wasn’t working in 1 John for the Apostle John. And here’s the sobering truth of the whole thing. What Jesus said in Matthew 15, 13. Every plant which my heavenly Father did not plant shall be rooted up. But he’s talking about the traditions of men that plague the Pharisees.

But I it’s so true, so easy to understand. If the Lord didn’t plant it’s not his. Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father shall be rooted up. And it really goes back to something extremely simple, a game that we play as little children. We call it follow the leader. It’s that simple. We talked about what a great leader we have this morning, leader of his church. In Ephesians chapter 1, it says, He is the head of the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all. What does that illustration reflect? Do those words mean anything at all? What does the head do in relation to the body? Your head tells your body what to do. And your body listens to what the head is telling it.

This speaks to authority. And Jesus wielding it because, as we noted this morning, this is his church. And if we do not plant what the Lord has planted in Scripture, which people twist and distort to their own destruction, Peter warns in 2 Peter chapter 3, because they are unstable. Yes, it’s possible to take the scriptures and misuse it and twist it and distort it to your own destruction. If we don’t plant what the Lord planted, the Father will root it up. Even people who are religious and worshipful. Because he says, They honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. So I want to offer some solutions. And I just don’t want to decry the problem that exists in our religious world. I know we’re sitting here scratching our heads going.

5. The Good and Honest Heart

Why can’t people see through this? Why can’t why can’t people just practice truth? There’s really a very simple explanation. Now, I hesitate to use the word simple because I’m not saying that it’s easy to produce. But the explanation is really quite simple, and that is to be the Lord’s people, and to be a part of this kingdom where he’s the king, we have to submit to his reign. The key to that goes very goes all the way back to a simple parable Jesus told about the sower, the seed, and the soils. It’s really that simple. It is the good and honest heart that produces the fruit of this kingdom. The one who hears the word, clings to it, and produces the fruit of this kingdom. He would say in John 15, my people abide in the vine.

6. We Have to Convert People to Christ

I am the true vine, and my people abide in me. And if you don’t do that, you’ll be cut off and burned. It’s a very simple explanation. But when you want to talk about what’s wrong in the religious world, people aren’t coming to the table with the right heart. That’s why it’s so fragmented. Because traditions, what mom and dad believe, or what some respectable church teaches, or what some respectable teacher teaches, has influenced people, and the blind follow the blind, and they both fall into the ditch. Jesus warned about that in Matthew 15 and verse 14. That’s the solution to it. Let me tell you something else that flows out of that. Short solution number two. And this is important. We have to convert people to Christ.

He is the Savior of the body. Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 23 says. Apparently, it is easy to convert people to a religious system that claims to honor Christ, but then not be converted to Christ. When those in Antioch had received the grace of God, and great numbers of them, it says, what? Turned to the Lord. When you turn from sinful ways unto salvation, you turn, you make an about face, and you run in the direction of the Lord. He’s the King, He’s the Savior. And so they had turned to the Lord. And Barnabas went down there, and why not send Barnabas? He’s the son of encouragement. And you know what he did? He encouraged those new Christians in Antioch with resolute heart. Well, that’s the heart of the kingdom.

Point number one. He encouraged them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord.

Sometimes in our effort to teach God’s plan, you know the person must come to belief and turn from sinful conduct and we delineate what that is according to the scripture. You’ve got to repent of that and confess that Jesus is the Christ, and people sign on to that and be baptized into Christ. All of that is excellent. That’s according to the book. But I get concerned sometimes that we don’t step back and fundamentally teach them before everything else. You need to be converted to Christ.

You need to be loyal to Him and not men, not a group. I think we lose people because we don’t get them to the point where they are loyal to Christ. Or we don’t see the danger of once they come into Christ, as Barnabas said, encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true, not to the church, but remain true to the Lord. My commitment is to a living and reigning Lord. I serve him. And sometimes that means people will be at odds with me. Perhaps they may even be the Lord’s people. Who decide they’re not going to follow him and be the follower that they once were. That happens. We see that throughout the New Testament. And people get disappointed because of the things men do or the things men don’t do.

And they allow their faith to be affected. You mean you’re going to allow yourself to be lost because someone didn’t act like they should act as a member of the Lord’s body? Or at least the way we thought they should have acted.

In our teaching people the plan of salvation, let us emphasize that they are coming into union with God. They are coming into union with the Lord. Their commitment is to him. And once we do that, as they develop this honest and humble heart, then you develop the spirit that Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the first miracle of Cana of Galilee. When the water pots were filled and Jesus turned the water to wine. I love Mary’s statement there about her own son. She tells the servants, whatever he says to you, do it. And that really reflects what conversion to Christ is all about. Whatever he says to you do that. Why do you call me Lord and do not do the things that I say?

I’m converted to Christ, and what that means is I yield to the King.

And that’s a lifelong pursuit and challenge. I have learned a lot. Even since I’ve been, not when I became a Christian, but even since I began preaching, I have learned a lot more about what it means to yield to the king. And how challenging that can be at times. And I’ll tell you where it penetrates and where it goes.

If we could take the time tonight to read Philippians chapter 2, perhaps I’m just going to challenge you to read this week. As we talk about developing a good and honest heart and being converted to Christ and possessing his mind. Philippians 2 may be some of the most challenging material in the New Testament as to what that means. We’ll start in verse 5 where it says, let this mind be in you, or have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. That’s the key to all of this. And the reason why there are so many denominations with so many differing viewpoints and people teaching what they want to about morality and about conversion to the Lord, what constitutes salvation, and once they’ve always saved, and all the other false doctrines that are out there like predestination, the reason why people are signing on to that is they’ve never developed the submissive and servant mind that Jesus displayed.

He’s the leader, he went first, as we talked about this morning. Let this mind be in you. And when we struggle in local churches, it’s because that mind is not present. That’s when it happens. And then is pictured his personal sacrifice. Did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped. He humbled himself and took upon himself the form of a servant. And what precedes verse 5 in this context are attitudes that we need to have toward each other. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. All of that flows into this. That’s the mind of Christ.

Conclusion

We pull our hair out, and some of us don’t have a lot to pull out, but we pull our hair out at the religious division all around us and say, why is this? Why can’t people see the simple truths of God’s word? For the same reason that only eight people got in the ark. They would not listen to the preacher of righteousness. They were smarter than that. And they weren’t going to get in the boat. And so we shouldn’t be surprised that the attitudes of the Pharisees are still present, people wanting to do things their own way, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men, and yet we all love Jesus and we’re all okay, and we’re all on the same boat. No, we’re not. We’re not on the same boat.

Because the people on this boat submit and serve the king. And that ought always to be our pursuit. Or this church of Christ may one day not be of Christ. That’s what the letters of the seven churches tell us. Because we were once of Christ doesn’t mean we will always be of Christ. Submissive and serving. Yes? Among his people, as Philippians 2 indicates, this challenge stands ever before us. Let us model his attitude. Let us think long and hard about what it means to have the mind of Christ in us in relation to each other. And I’ll tell you, if we get that right, we’ll also understand that it has everything to do about the way we behave in our homes. And again, the characteristic words of submissive and serving.

And I understand that I am the head of my family. That’s the role God has given me the man to play. But it is still a role of submission and service. Because that’s what Jesus demonstrated. It’s not all about me because I’m the man and doing things the way I want to do it because I’m the decision maker and the authority. Man, me. That’s not what Jesus modeled. And when you want to break it down, that’s what’s wrong in people’s homes. It’s the same thing that’s happening in the religious world. It’s all about the exaltation of me. And may we show that submission and service to the Lord. And that’s why, I mean, to the lost, and that’s why when things don’t go well, and someone treats you unjustly, you turn the other cheek.

Because that’s what Jesus did. Again, he went first. This model of submissiveness and service. See, that leads you to obedience. And we need to practice it. That’s the only way you learn it by practice, imitating the Lord. I’m going to practice this in my home. And I’m going to start with the most important person in the world to me, and that is my spouse. However much their foyles drive me nuts, and they will.

Because that’s what the Lord modeled. And I’m going to do it among my brethren. My goal is always going to be their betterment. And the welfare of this entire body of the Lord’s people. And that’s how shepherds serve. And they’re submissive and serve us. As they shepherd and lead us and direct us. That’s the way it works. And the reason why we have denominations is because people don’t come back to the very fundamentals of following the leader. And so may it be your spirit where he leads. I’ll follow. And we’re going to sing that to the Lord and to each other right now. Let’s stand and sing.