Anabaptist Theology, Part 4

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. We greet each one in Jesus' name this evening. So, to be introducing what we have this evening, the fourth point of the Anabaptist vision, I'll just run down through all four of them. First one, the Holy Scripture is the ultimate authority. [00:00:31] Since they are, I order my life and discipleship to Jesus Christ. When others do the same, I enter into a body relationship with them called the Church. And now tonight, the one we'd like to consider, the church operates with love and nonresistance as it cooperates with Christ to build the kingdom of God. The Bible is the ultimate authority in our lives. It's authority over the church, over the state, and over the individual. The second one was in relation to discipleship. No man follows Christ except he follow him in daily life. [00:01:05] Christianity is understood as discipleship. We talk about oneness of faith and life. It's not separated into faith and practice. The head and the heart may not be separated from the walk of life. They must be one together. The third one, this is what we spent time with the last time, different concepts of the church. The Roman Catholic Church has a dependence kind of mentality. The Protestant emphasis is more on independence. and we would understand the New Testament to teach interdependence [00:01:37] where individuals in a church are accountable to each other and also churches are accountable to other churches. We introduced it last time and said just a few things with the two kingdom concept works itself out in all kinds of practical ways. You notice on this side we have the power of darkness and over here we have the kingdom of God and these are parallel [00:02:07] like we have the power of darkness controlled by Satan on this hand and Christ on this side now we run down through every one of these now you think about the two kingdoms there are two kingdoms in the world and they're not equal the kingdom of God looks like it's losing out to the kingdom of darkness if you look around it seems like there's more darkness than light that's only an illusion God is allowing it to be this way but the victory is already decided it's already won it's just that God is allowing us to choose [00:02:39] which kingdom we want to be a part of but look at this in the power of darkness we have rebellion versus worship and we make applications of these kinds of things whenever we start to feel rebellious in our lives we're not part of the kingdom of God I mean, we're not functioning like the kingdom of God functions. The kingdom of God functions with worship, not rebellion. Evil versus righteousness. Bondage versus freedom. [00:03:11] Sin versus goodness. Darkness versus light. Hatred versus love. And that's our focus tonight. Violence versus kindness. Selfishness versus selflessness. We'll talk about that tonight. taking versus giving lest I forget it what's the opposite of love? what's the opposite of love? what is the essence of love? giving giving, exactly [00:03:41] for God so loved the world that he gave and so the opposite of love is selfishness everything coming to me think about that in the kingdoms here so it's taking versus giving then it's life Lies vs. Truth Death vs. Life Pride vs. Humility We'll talk some more about that tonight. Alright, those are basic ideas. Now, the powers of darkness have their own culture and their own civilization [00:04:15] and the kingdom of God has a counterculture. See, this church right here and many of the churches here in northern Indiana are part of an Anabaptist counterculture. That's right. Every place the kingdom of God and the New Testament is taught, it produces a counterculture. A counterculture is like a subculture within the culture. And we don't make any apologies for that, because that's the way the gospel is worked out in practical experience. [00:04:45] And it produces a different kind of living, a different kind of lifestyle. And so the kingdom of God has its own culture and its own civilization. now those two are opposed and if you look at how the history of churches worked out in the world this kingdom is always calling this kingdom to come over here but this kingdom is also calling this kingdom to come over here so there's enmity, there's war there's a tug of war here [00:05:17] between the two kingdoms they're opposed to each other they're threatened by each other and if we don't feel threatened by the world if we feel comfortable with the world then we know that we're becoming a part of the enemy we better wake up because there is tension and you'll notice that here's a whole list of life issues the flow of the culture wants us to interpret all these this way in terms of the kingdom of darkness [00:05:47] well then of course the kingdom of heaven The kingdom vision wants us to work out these life issues this way. And there's a tension here. And last time I think we just looked at education. We look at art. It would be, we could take all the rest of this evening talking about these. But I don't think we're going to. Art. Food. How can food? How is food related to two kingdoms? [00:06:20] You mean there's kingdom food? And non-kingdom food? Really? Now be careful here. I'm not saying that just health food is the kingdom of God and otherwise. I'm not saying that kind of thing. But I think that the kingdom of God, in relation to body stewardship, is careful what it eats. We don't just fill our bodies full of junk foods. and we feed our children we give our children breakfast in the morning so they get some nourishment for the activities of the day food does matter my eye doctor told me one time he said you are what you eat well I thought about that and I thought about that and thought about that I didn't know what to think about it at first but I think he's pretty near right and if I drink a lot of soft drink well then I'm soft drink it's not good for me if I drink milk [00:07:19] and so the kingdom of God even works itself out in terms of food and in schedules the kingdom of God produces industriousness and it teaches against laziness but you know it's very easy for God's people in kingdom values to overdo good things we tend to get too industrious then we get to be workaholics then we don't have time for our families we don't have time for personal devotions we don't have time to minister to other people and so on And we say, well, the dollars are coming in. [00:07:51] You know, if I have another chance at another dollar, I should go for it. Well, I'll tell you, it takes discipline. It really takes discipline to know where to draw the line on some of these things. After all, the almighty dollar isn't almighty. There are some other things that are almighty. God is almighty. All right. Cars. Houses. Business. How we run business. Two different ways of running business. Two different kinds of clothes to wear. Recreation. Money. Possessions. Leisure. [00:08:36] We were just over at Fairhaven looking at the CAM pictures and I don't see how a person who is a part of the Kingdom of God can see all the needs in the world and then go to an airport and pay $200 to go skydiving. It just doesn't fit together. Or could I, in good conscience, spend $2,000 on a ski trip to Colorado or whatever, or a hunting trip, when there are those kinds of needs in the world? [00:09:12] How can I do that? It would seem that the kingdom of God within me, love and compassion for other things, other people's needs in the world, would make me feel guilty for feeding all this money into me and to my pleasures. I know there's a proper place for recreation, but I think maybe sometimes some of us, we go a little overboard on this one. Now, I know we have to step aside sometimes. We have to rest. God at least made sure we do it one time in seven, at least. [00:09:45] And if he wouldn't have done that, I'm not sure if we'd even take that sometimes. but leisure romance there's two different ways to have romance like I said we can talk and talk about these things sexuality feminism are you ladies feminists? are you feminists? I hope not I hope you're feminine but I hope you're not feminists [00:10:16] Marriage Roles in marriage Authority Ooh, that's a bad one Our culture is rubbing off on us Our culture, which is anti-authority, is rubbing off on us And in church we have people who are having problems with authority Is authority a good thing? Well, of course it's a good thing Authority is a protection The husband has authority in his home and he protects his family. [00:10:47] There's authority in the state and the state protects its citizens. There's authority in the church. It's a little different kind of authority than the others, but it's still a kind of protection. And to say that we are, we don't want authority. All authority is bad. It's threatening. That tells us that we're thinking like the kingdom of darkness. Well, anyway, if we take these routes, we are taking the broad way. This is the narrow way, this is the flesh way, this is the easy way, this is the difficult way. [00:11:21] Jesus says many go in here, this way, and few there be that go this way. But all life issues is worked out in terms of the kingdom like this. And it's a huge subject in itself. In the essence of the Anabaptist vision it said, The church operates with love and nonresistance. It cooperates with Christ to build the kingdom of God. And we've already introduced this idea of love versus selfishness. Now look, love. [00:11:53] We often think of love in terms of family. Well, it does include family down here. But it includes more than family. And when we think of nonresistance, one of the first things we think about is we love our enemies. And Jesus taught us to love our enemies. We ought to love our enemies. And you know, when you look at Anabaptist history for the last 500 years, it's this one that we've done the best on. Because we have been faithful to Christ in that we have said that we would rather be killed than to kill anybody else. [00:12:32] We will not take up arms in war. We will not take up arms at home to defend ourselves. It's, we cannot love somebody and hold a gun on it and pull the trigger. You can't, it's impossible. And so, we don't go to war. And we have been spared much by that. But if you look at the story of World War II, if I'm not mistaken, I'm talking off the top of my head here, I think, you take the total Anabaptist community, [00:13:05] I think it was close to 50% that did go to war in World War II. Am I correct on that, Marvin? I'm not sure, but it's unfortunate it was that high. And if it would come right down to today, I'm not sure it would be a whole lot worse than that today. So, we've taken a stand against war. We've had alternate service. And it's been a blessing and a curse to the church at the same time. That's a whole subject in itself. But, you know, Now, in our country, when it comes to warfare, they're talking about women being involved in warfare, as well as men. [00:13:44] So we don't know what the future is going to hold on that one. So far we have a volunteer army, and so we have it easy, but it could turn around. I've got to look at this one. This is embarrassing, but I guess we're going to have to face up to this. Love and nonresistance Brothers and sisters, we've done better at loving our enemies than we have at loving our brothers [00:14:14] And what do I mean by that? Our story is not very nice to look at on this one Love and nonresistance would teach us that we ought to be experts at reconciliation and peace in brotherhoods by now. After 500 years of practice, we ought to be experts. But the facts are that we today, as we're sitting here, [00:14:46] we are great fault finders with each other. Instead of finding ways to respect and appreciate each other, Mennonites are fractious and find reasons to build walls to keep each other out. Now, fortunately, not all are as bad as others. And I'm just going to bless you folks sitting here. You don't have a mentality of walls quite like some people do. And I bless you in that. [00:15:18] I don't know why. I guess it's because we are so concerned about doctrine and what's right. And that's virtuous. But I wish we could somehow learn how to find the good in other people and the good in other groups instead of always noticing the negative and the faults and the wrongs in other people and other groups. I know that our human nature is negative by nature. Our fallenness just makes us be negative. [00:15:52] It's a burden that I have that we can rise above that. Let me show you something. This is a part of another overhead, but the spontaneous byproduct of God's love working in us translates into a higher ethic. I think I might have shared some of this with you before. We have for too long focused down here on these things. And they have their place. Rules have their place. Standards have their place. [00:16:25] rituals and ordinances have their place observable practice have their place orthodox theology, it matters, I know that but I just wish we could pay more attention to these things we understand Jesus teaches us to deny ourselves to die to ourselves, to take up the cross and follow him but what does that translate into then? Is it just simply we're just kind of frozen, we just keep to ourselves or Or, is he asking us to launch out and do greater things, such as these things, like the law of God written in our hearts. [00:17:03] If the law of God is written in my heart, if I love God with all my heart, soul, and strength, and you come to me and you share with me something in my life that isn't quite up to the gospel standard, I say, well, thank you, I appreciate your love for me. You cared enough about me to say something to me. Versus You mind your own business. You have enough problems of your own. Just take care of your own. Then I'll listen to you. See, one is flesh and the other is spirit. [00:17:38] When we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, then we are glad for people. We are glad for accountability. We are glad for others who are willing to speak into our lives with love. and we're not defensive and we don't make excuses because we have the law of God written in our hearts and we see this as an opportunity to grow and to go on with God. Not only that, we have opportunities to overcome evil with good. Maybe I'll look at forgiveness first. [00:18:11] You know, you cannot live in the world without people hurting you. It's just the way it is. And some people keep a record of their hurts. And they just, well, if you know what he did to me, such and such, you would have a problem too. No, the higher ethic. Jesus calls us every time to forgive and to forgive and to forgive. And finally, Peter said, Lord, how often should we forgive? Till seven times? Jesus said, I think Peter is just shocked, Peter. [00:18:45] He wasn't expecting anything. He said 70 times, 70, 490 times. and I don't think the limit was even 490. It's unlimited. And so if we are thinking this way and living this way of forgiveness and forgiveness and for forgiveness, can we have chips on our shoulders? Can we? It seems to me if we have forgiveness, we give each other lots of space and lots of grace and kindness. [00:19:21] And we're not touchy and defensive. You know, husbands and wives, we ought to be specialists. And if we are a Christian home and a Christian family, husbands and wives become specialists at forgiveness. Because when you live close to other people, you rub and you rub. And it just takes forgiveness. and forgiveness and forgiveness you know forgiveness is a choice it's not something you feel yourself [00:19:51] into i feel like forgiving and now i don't feel like forgiving no forgiveness is a choice and jesus taught us to pray he says forgive us this day no forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and we ask jesus not to forgive us if we don't forgive others and so forgiveness This is just a way of life for this. And then once we learn how to forgive, we go beyond just forgiveness. We're actually able to overcome evil with good. [00:20:22] Somebody who has hurt us, we can find some way to secretly bless them. Somebody who hurt us, send flowers. Now I know you can do it in ornery ways where you rub salt in and we say, well, I'm heaping coals of fire on their head. that's not real love operating like that but we can find ways just to rise above all kinds of evil nobody, nobody in the world can make me mad [00:20:55] if I get mad I choose to get mad I choose not to overcome evil with good when you read about the stories of Anabaptist martyrs it just makes you marvel and marvel and marvel because this was working This right here was working. Time and time again. Then we go on to things like the Good Samaritan. One time somebody asked Jesus, Who's my neighbor? And Jesus said, He told the story of the Good Samaritan. [00:21:27] The priest wasn't a neighbor. He saw a need, but he was too busy with rituals down here to stop and fix a need, tend to a need. There's a Levite. Same deal. He was so tied up in rituals, he didn't have time or ability. and maybe he thought he shouldn't even touch the wounded man but of all people and I think Jesus enemies probably just it just grated on them why did Jesus have to say a Samaritan of all people they're supposed to be the bad people to start with here Jesus is saying a bad man did something good we see it's not limited these love as is expressed is not limited to certain people [00:22:12] And I'll just share this with you. I grew up in a Mennonite home, in a Mennonite community, and I've been around Mennonites all my life. But I've got involved in homeschool conventions and I've discovered that there are some people who are not Mennonites who know better how to raise children than we do. They do better at discipline, they do better at organizing their families, and they do better at order than many of us. When I saw that, I thought, OK, I mean, if it's if it's true, it's true. [00:22:47] And I know it's true. It's not just something I've seen. We've interacted with enough people to know that that is true. Now, if I was if I was turf conscious, I would refuse to acknowledge that. But the fact is, if Samaritans do better than Jews, well, then Samaritans do do better than Jews. We just need to accept it. And so, when it comes to Good Samaritan opportunities, if we have an opportunity to bless somebody, [00:23:18] we should bless them. And you think about what the Good Samaritan did. He stopped. He didn't just look. He went in and got his hands dirty. He picked up this wounded man and he proudly wiped the blood off. And then he took his own wine and oil and poured it on these wounds. and after he had this man tended to with his first aid that he lifted this poor man up and set him on his beast and I really think that he walked [00:23:49] and the wounded man rode and he got to the inn and the man had duties I suppose and so he left him with the innkeeper he didn't really need to be there all the time because all the poor man needed was some rest and he said you take care of this man and I'm going to pay the bill He says, whatever you spend more than what this... He probably left some money with him. Whatever you spend more, I'll pay for it. Now talk about love. That's love. That's not selfishness. [00:24:21] That's going beyond the call of duty. Way beyond. Well, how many rules do we have here at Rosewood? And how many times are you allowed to be a good Samaritan in one day? Our human nature, we're always looking... No, I shouldn't say we're always looking. So many people focus on the bottom. What's the minimum standard? Just so I'm above the minimum standard. Look at all these opportunities up on the top here. What's the maximum standard? Well, there is none. We can exercise ourselves in love and giving [00:24:55] as many times as we have opportunity. Golden rule. Give to other people. Do to other people as you like them to do unto you. How many times can we practice the golden rule? How many cups of cold water could we give in a day's time? There's no limit. Love is limitless. And this, the higher ethic, this is where Christ's heart is. When we're Christians, when we know God, this is how we live. [00:25:29] The higher ethic. And would to God, some of us would just rise far beyond these kinds of levels and up into these kinds of levels. You know, down here we're preoccupied with the statement of what's wrong with such and such. Versus up here, what's right with such and such. Could I have an opportunity to do such and such? And I just bless God for agencies in our churches like Christian Aid Ministries [00:25:59] who have risen to this challenge and are going around different places. It's like they're sitting in their offices waiting for the next disaster and as soon as the next disaster happens, here we are once again. God blesses that. And we bless God for opportunities, organized opportunities to serve in humanitarian needs. And not only that, if you were over at Fairhaven the other day, you saw how the Christian Aid Ministries is not only dealing with humanitarian, [00:26:32] but they're entering into a spiritual ministry as well. Praise God for that. It's wonderful that the church is entering into fields like that. There's one, I don't have one here yet, and that's humility. Humility. You see, selfishness is pride. Focus on me and my advantage, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, there's enough illustrations of that in the world and we have enough in our fallen human nature to know all about that. [00:27:03] But what is humility? Is humility talking myself down? No, I'm no good. I'm a blah, blah, blah. No, that's not humility either. What is humility? Someone tell me, what is humility? Thinking zero? What do you mean zero? Okay, just not talking about yourself. Right, you're just accepting yourself. You're just being realistic with yourself. Romans 12.3 says, [00:27:34] I say to everyone that's among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly or realistically. Just the way we are. I know Bill here is a welder. He's probably a good welder. He doesn't have to think about that all day. He just welds well. And somebody says you're a good welder, he says thanks. The same way you do for all of you. Some of you ladies are good cooks. I've found that out since I'm here. Well, bless you. If somebody tells you you're a good cook, you say, oh, no, I'm not. [00:28:07] No, that's not humility. Well, thank you. Just accept yourself the way you are. humility goes far and you know what we all have enough native pride in us whenever we see pride oozing out of somebody we pick it up just like that here's another way we demonstrate love the great commission Jesus says go and we go into all the world [00:28:38] but I have to tell you something we have not done so well in this one Our Protestant friends adopted a different way of going into all the world. And we forgot our Anabaptist practice and history, and so we have borrowed their model. I'm sorry to report this to you, but now the Protestant model is we have a whole bunch of people back here who support several people who go with a professional missionary approach. [00:29:08] Where do you find that in the New Testament? It's not there. This is what Jesus teaches. And I bless you folks here. Every member is a missionary. When you're out there and doing your job, you're always God's emissary. You're always God's spokesman for whatever and wherever. and I bless God for the public businesses that I see around here [00:29:40] where you're not isolating yourselves but you're finding opportunities to rub shoulders with other people and to share Christ with them. I bless God for that. In conclusion, there are more things we could talk about but in conclusion, if we have the pure church right here where people are operating with a higher ethic like we're talking about In the process of time, we tend to react to our past in one way or the other. The one way of reacting, if we go down this way, we react to legalism. [00:30:11] We think about our past and we say, well, I sure don't want that. You know what reaction is? Someone helped me with this understanding recently and I really appreciate it. Reaction is unforgiveness for some kind of past abuse. The people on this side react to legalism and so they jump to the other ditch and they bask in freedom and they talk about being saved by grace and as they move through life first, second, and third generations they move into looseness [00:30:42] and the haze of humanism and they're lost once again. And the opposite side, over here people react to looseness in their past and they decided that the best way to handle that is to control carnality with standards. But eventually there's no future in that either and he turns into legalism which ends up in the haze of humanism. So we have the haze of humanism here and here. But eventually there's a remnant returns back to the pure church once again. [00:31:14] And that's the story, brothers and sisters. That's the story of the Christian church for 2,000 years now. It's this cycle that just goes over and over. And you say, well, why don't we learn? I wish we would. And there are some people who do. But it seems like it seems like whenever people get started down this road here or get down this road here, it doesn't matter what you show them. It's like they close their eyes. I got my mind made up. Just don't confuse me with the facts. [00:31:46] It's kind of foolish. But that's what some people do. Don't confuse me with the facts. Well, it seems like if we have a heart after God, we're saying, show me the facts. I want to know the facts. I want to know the story of the past. I don't want to repeat all that mistake. That's what Psalm 78 would teach us. Learn from the mistakes of our fathers. David Bersow shared this with me sometime, and I want to give it to you and just share you for what it's worth. We talked about standards a little bit. He says, and I think it's true, that we have some direct New Testament We know that's what Jesus teaches. [00:32:28] And then there are natural applications of specific New Testament principles, such as nonresistance, like we're talking about tonight. Well, if we're going to be nonresistant, then it has to be worked out in some kind of practical way. And so we don't serve in the military. Okay, that's very easy to see. If you can't see those, you're blind. Okay, but then he draws a dotted line across here and he says, now we're on a little different ground. He says, we have practices in the church such as acapella singing or segregated seating. [00:33:02] You know, the Jews in Jesus' day, the women sat in one place and the men sat in a different place. And I think, I don't know if they sang back in those days in synagogue or not, but the Christian church has a long history of singing. acapella so practices like that become a part of church experience and we just consider that normal and then we have principles from the New Testament that protect us from evil influences [00:33:34] for example we don't have television if you're a member of Rosewood you don't have television that's good, very good it's an application, it's very easy to understand But then we have standards designed to preserve the Mennonite ethos Or like a plain suit is an identity element Or you folks here wear a calf style covering Some churches have black cars And we could go on with all these kind of things [00:34:04] And there are standards and there's room for some variation of this kind of thing Now, here's the problem For us, this makes sense to all of us. But people who come into Anabaptist churches from outside and they see us put all that in one package and put that all equal. And he says, you folks are not honest. And it makes people who come in from the outside go like this. They know better that this is, you cannot put all these on the same level. [00:34:36] Now, please don't get me wrong. There is a place for all this, but we need to be honest about all this. Honest. For example, I value wearing a plain suit. I think it's good. In fact, I come from a church where they stopped wearing it and I saw where it went. It became the thing, it became the cool thing to do to take off your plain suit and put on something else. Okay? Well, that was only a part of the story. They dropped a whole bunch of other things, too. So I plan to keep wearing mine. [00:35:08] But if I'm going to put that on the same level as divorce and remarriage, I'm not being honest. He says, you Mennonites, please be honest about these things. Especially for people who don't have our background, Anabaptist background. Be objective. And when they ask you hard questions you can't answer, don't pretend you're giving an answer. If you don't have a good answer, just say, I'm sorry. Well, we really bumped into this kind of thing in Texas for a while. [00:35:43] People with non-Anabaptist background, they ask hard questions, questions you never thought of. Now, what are you going to say? Well, the worst thing to say is, well, I don't know, but this is the way we've always done it, so that's why we're always going to do it this way. That is bad news to those people. They say, I care a hill of beans about how you've always done it. I want to know whether it's right or not. Lastly, the Calvinist theology emphasizes repentance and justification. They worship God's transcendent majesty. [00:36:15] Repentance. The Methodist, now these are not Catholic, by the way. This is on the Protestant side. The Methodist would talk about the sweet inner experience of the grace of God through the Holy Spirit. See him smiling? He's so blessed. But, you know, Anabaptism has both of those plus much more in it. But look at this. The Anabaptist is more concerned about getting busy and doing with a vision for the future. Discipleship, obedience, martyrdom, kingdom work. I don't have time to sit around and do nothing. [00:36:47] We translate this ethic of being industrious, not only in our natural pursuits, but our spiritual pursuits. And we are on the offensive for the kingdom of heaven. There's a defensive part and there's an offensive. and to be real honest about it we have backed way off and we're way we have been way too much on the defensive in the last several hundred years and it's it's time past time for us to get more on the offensive Jesus says the gates of hell [00:37:23] cannot prevail against the church and I think that's against an offensive church