Anabaptist Vision, Part 2

[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. Extend a Christian greeting to each of you who have gathered in to worship this evening. On the subject of Anabaptist theology, maybe we'll just look at one reference tonight. Luke 14, 25-33 What word do we find in that passage that's mentioned three times? [00:00:34] It starts with a D, disciple. This brings us to the second point of the Anabaptist vision, discipleship. The last time we looked at the Holy Scriptures being the ultimate authority. Now, since they are, the second point is, I order my life in discipleship to Jesus Christ. Now, just what do we mean by discipleship? Well, that's the focus of the evening tonight. The first principle, the Bible is the word of God, thus it's the ultimate authority in our lives. [00:01:06] And the scriptures are supreme over the church, it's supreme over the state, we obey God rather than men. It's also supreme over any kind of individual. You and I, our attitudes, our ideas, they really don't matter if God disagrees. We have to say, yes, God, in whatever he says, because all his counsels are right. And number two, Christianity as discipleship. [00:01:38] There's a quote by an Anabaptist who said this, No man follows Christ except he follow him in daily life. That says it in a nutshell, right there. It's just that simple. How many books do you have at your house on Anabaptist theology? Well, I have a book at my house entitled The Theology of Anabaptism. It's about this thick. And if you read that book, it says basically one thing. There is no such thing as Anabaptist theology. And as far as books are concerned, their basic theology is [00:02:09] we don't write about it, we live it. That's all it is. In evidence is the watchword. If your faith is not in evidence, you don't have faith. That's what our Anabaptist forefathers said. The Lutherans talked about justification by faith. And Anabaptists looked on and they saw that the morals of Europe were worse under the Lutherans than they were even under Catholics. And they said, if it's not lived, you don't have it. Sorry, it doesn't matter if you're making claims, claims of having it. [00:02:41] If you don't live your faith, you don't have it. Alright, now, you notice here it says faith and life and it says oneness. This is extremely important, that faith and life are one, compared to dualism, which has faith separated from practice, where we have head and heart separate from the walk of life. And this is what we were talking about just a bit ago. Our Anabaptist forefathers understood Jesus to say, [00:03:13] You know, the wise men build his house upon a rock because he is the person who heard what Jesus said and did that. The foolish man is the one who heard what Jesus said and didn't do that. And so, our lives have to be one. Alright, now we have to launch into a little history here. The Gnostic heresy was around for a long time. And the book of 1 John, the epistle of 1 John deals with this. The Gnostic heresy said that God and spirit are good and earth and body are evil. [00:03:53] Knowledge is more important than experience. And in the book of 1 John it says if someone says that Jesus Christ is not coming to flesh, he's antichrist. Alright? That's basically saying that if somebody says that God is spirit, but he didn't have an earthly body, he didn't really live here, and there are people who said that in that day. He's Antichrist. Now, what's the ramifications of this? Some people were saying that God did not come in the flesh. Flesh is matter. [00:04:24] It's physical. See, the Gnostics had an idea that spirit was superior to matter. And if you really were just pure in spirit, that's really all that mattered. What you lived didn't matter because matter is evil. You understand? Alright. Christian theology, and this is not Anabaptist, This is just Christian theology says that Jesus is, Jesus Christ is 100% God and Jesus Christ is also 100% man. The spirit and the flesh are combined. [00:04:55] It's oneness, not dualism. You see, if the New Testament would teach that if we talk about spirit and we talk about heart and yet we have a life that's unclean, it's not living in holiness, that that equals unholiness you can't mix the two and have half holiness and half not holy it's just not holy period and so God's plan simply is oneness where we have heart and spirit is equal to life and practice in other words what we say we believe and how we live are one and the same thing there's no difference between the two [00:05:39] and our Anabaptist forefathers looked around them and the Roman Catholic Church had a whole hierarchy of leaders and the monks here we'll take for example they gambled and they cursed and they gathered riches and they fornicated but praise God they had sacraments they could go to church on Sunday and take the sacrament and they get Christ in them and they got blessed and what would they have done if they couldn't have taken the sacrament? Now, we don't believe this. We believe this is false doctrine, their concept here. [00:06:15] But this is what they did. They said a little baby that was born into the world has to be baptized when he's eight days old to be cleansed from his original sin. Once you get baptized, sin's gone. He's a Christian now. He's a part of the church. We know better than that. That made an awful issue back in those days. Well, the priests were the same way. They're the ones that gave the sacraments to the people. But they had their concubines. Felix Mons was an illegitimate son of a priest and some other lady. But praise God, they have sacraments. They can go get forgiven. They go confess their sins to the priest and they could take the sacrament and everything's okay. So they led double lives. Good on one hand, bad on the other. Good on one hand, bad on the other. [00:07:02] We have the crusaders going down to the Middle East to conquer the land and rescue it from the Turks, the infidel Turks. They went down there and every day they would butcher Muslims and then they would come on Sunday and take the sacraments and get Christ in them. Well, praise God for the sacraments, you see. Double lives. They did awful things in the name of Christ. And the Muslims to this day still blame and have memories of what the Christians did to them down there in the Middle East. It's a dualistic concept. [00:07:34] The Protestants, they don't make any beans about it. Martin Luther says that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And it's just real important that people come and hear the sermon. Good theologically correct sermons because faith comes by hearing. And you have a relationship between yourself and God. You don't have to go through the priest anymore. But when you have a relationship with God, you're justified. And as I said, the morals of Europe sank under Lutheranism because now there's not even the accountability of having to go confess to a priest anymore. [00:08:11] So it was worse under Lutheranism than it was under Catholicism. I didn't bring this, but I could read you a story about a man who came to a church to preach. Before they came in to preach, he asked the preacher, he said, How many people on a typical Sunday morning across the land are out of fellowship with God? He says, I don't know. And this visiting speaker says, Why don't you ask these people? [00:08:47] And the local preacher said, No. He says, You ask them. So he did. He said, on any typical Sunday morning, how many people across America are out of fellowship with God? And they voted. And they decided on any typical Sunday morning, 70% of the people who gathered in a Protestant evangelical church are out of fellowship with God. And then he says, okay, we're going to go one step further. Now, in this service where we are this morning, how many of you, sitting next to each other, how many of you think are out of fellowship with God? [00:09:27] And they voted and it turned out to be 75% in that local congregation. And he says he's asked this across the land and it runs between 50 and 80% everywhere he goes. Do you know why? Why? Because many, many Protestants have this concept that you can be out of fellowship with God, but still be saved, praise God. You're saved, but you're not in fellowship. Why are you saved? You said the sinner's prayer, you have justification by faith, but we're still living in sin, we're just losing blessings, they would say. [00:10:04] Do you ever hear of unconditional eternal security? That's what we're talking about. They're just missing blessings. Many, many Protestants are so thankful for their faith. They don't do sacraments like Catholics, but they're thankful for their faith. But they're out of fellowship with God. And so, praise God, they believe they're saved. And I have found that this concept has trickled into our churches. and there are many beachy boys [00:10:35] I was doing this at Calvary Bible School for a segregated chapel that's why it's this way but many beachy boys are professing Christians but they're careless and inconsistent with their lives but praise God they have faith praise God they were baptized into the church praise God that Jesus forgave their sins yeah they know they're inconsistent they ought not to live this way they know they're missing a blessing but praise God they're saved You know what our Anabaptist forefathers would say? The way you live is what your faith is. [00:11:08] So, I'm saying that this concept is in danger among us today. Oneness. There are some beachy boys who are godly, faithful, and obedient. And of course, the question in a situation like that is, which are you? And that challenges for each of us tonight. Which are we? Are we as consistent as we believe in our personal lives? Alright, now we're going to change the focus just a little bit, but this is extremely important. Now, God illustrates this next principle both in the natural world and in the spiritual world. [00:11:43] In the natural law, for production to happen, we have to have both male and female. We have to have both positive and negative for electricity to flow. If you hook a battery up to just the positive terminal, you're not going to get electricity. If you hook it up just to the negative terminal, you're not going to get any electricity. it's whenever there's a line between a positive and negative that electricity flows in order for production we have to have work and rest if we work all the time we'll lose production [00:12:14] you have to rest if you rest all the time you lose production no work happens it's a natural law that's built in the universe male and female for children God designed the universe this way well there's a spiritual counterpart for this For eternal life, there has to be a divine call and human response. God's not going to do it all for us. He had His part. The provision is made through Christ. He sent Christ into the world. And Jesus did His part by coming and teaching us what God expects [00:12:47] and giving His life as a ransom for sin. But then there has to be a human response. Humans cannot just simply work hard enough and keep all God's laws and finally get into eternal life. It doesn't work that way. There has to be the divine provision and the human response for eternal life. Another way of referring to that is the creative synergy principle where we have spiritual success when God and man are both working together [00:13:22] just as in the natural law. Creative synergy requires both of them. working together. Now let's look at some practicals on this. This is just a few illustrations of this greatest synergy principle. For spiritual blessing and for spiritual prosperity, there has to be both faith and works. There has to be both love and obedience. You know, our Anabaptist forefathers, [00:13:53] they didn't sing songs like, Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus. They would have said, yeah, you can say that, but show me how much you love Jesus. I'll be impressed with how much you really do love Jesus. Well, how much do we love Jesus? Well, we prove it by how we love other people. If you love me, keep my commandments, and so on. And it goes on and on. They would have been suspect of people who are making loud professions about how much they love Jesus. [00:14:24] All right, further. inner, inner work, outer work in other words, sometimes they talked about the inner work I think we talked about this the last time and an outer work well, God does his work in our hearts in our minds, he transforms our minds but he doesn't just simply stop there that transformed mind then turns into transformed behavior so, there's both an inner work [00:14:56] In an outer work, mercy and truth. The psalmist talks about that. He puts them both beside each other in the Psalms. Mercy on one hand. Mercy is giving people what they don't deserve. And truth is what is the standard, what God expects. Mercy and truth. Can't have all truth? Nobody would make it. Can't have all mercy? God has lots of mercy [00:15:28] in school this morning we're talking about God's dilemma you know God has a dilemma God is so merciful and loving and gracious He just pours out His grace on people but what do people who receive His grace do? many times they just take it into themselves Deuteronomy 32.15 says Jesuit waxed fat and kicked So when God blesses people, many times they kick and they walk away from Him. So what should God do? [00:15:59] Should He not bless them? Should He send persecution? Does God like to chasten? Do we as parents like to punish our children? Are we just waiting for an opportunity to punish our children? No. But God's not that way either. God's not waiting for an opportunity to punish. He just wants to bless and bless and bless. But when He blesses, people walk away from Him. So, what's he supposed to do? It's been called God's dilemma. Well, mercy and truth are balanced. [00:16:30] I don't know if you'd say they're balanced, but they both have a part to play. Okay, the way we're made, we have both an emotional aspect to ourselves and we have an intellectual aspect. I'm dealing with you tonight. I'm talking to you with an intellectual aspect. I'm not talking about it. The things that I'm talking about right now are not making warm fuzzies in your heart. I doubt it. Emotion has its place. But the nature of our topic tonight lends itself to more of the intellectual part. But we are emotional beings and God is emotional. [00:17:02] Anything that has to do with feelings like anger and joy and peace, irritation, warm fuzzies, all those things are emotions. Well, some of our black friends are more naturally oriented toward emotion. Did you know that white people, like we are, we're more inclined toward intellectual? The Caucasian people are more inclined that way than the black people are. But they both have a place. [00:17:34] God engages both our intellect and our emotions. And then we have both defensive and offensive actions in our spiritual experience. In our churches, we have to work with both maintenance. The sheep have to be cared for. But then there's the effort to go out for the one. The 99 are in, but the straying one is out. And so the good shepherd goes seeks that one. [00:18:04] And we have missions. missions are an offensive effort and we talk about outreach that's an offensive effort when the church moves forward and takes ground we could say it's working on the offense well we also have to do defense but a church now think about what it's like to have a church that's just doing defense is it a growing church? is it a thriving church? no, many many times it's a dying church But now, can you think of churches that are all offensive? [00:18:37] All they do, work for, is to win people and to conquer ground for the kingdom. I know a group of people who in their experience are so oriented toward evangelism that they have not taken care of their homes and so they have many marriages that are not so good and their children, they have big problems with their children because their children aren't trained. It's because they're so dedicated to offense, they have not done their defensive work. [00:19:09] So we have to do both of these. Of course, we have principles and we have practice. Now, the principles, somebody has said we really don't have a principle unless we have a practice. We can think we have principle, but until there's a practice there to back up the principle, we really don't have the principle. But there's some truth in that. They have to both be together. Can you have practice with no principle? Absolutely. Can you really have principle with no practice? [00:19:43] Not really. That's the creative synergy principle. For divine blessing, you think about the vertical relationship we have with God. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father is vertical. Loving God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength. But then our horizontal relationship is our relationship with our brothers and sisters. Loving our neighbor as ourselves. Now, 1 John says, if you don't love your neighbor as yourself, the horizontal, you don't have this. [00:20:14] You don't have your vertical. And if we have a vertical relationship with God, what does he tell us to do? What's the first commandment? Love. See, you can't have one without the other. They're both there. And the others are illustrations, experience and doctrine, doctrine and practice. One must have the other. Now, I'm not German, but I've learned this German word called Bußfertigkeit and you folks who know German can educate me on this one. I understand that it means finished repentance. Is that correct, you German people? [00:20:47] Bußfertigkeit, am I pronouncing it right? Okay. Now, what does that mean? Our Anabaptist forefathers used to talk about this. And what they would mean by that is If your behavior, your conduct, your manner of life does not give evidence of repentance, you haven't repented. Now, compare that with the Protestants who pray the sinner's prayer and have repented one time and can go on in living out of fellowship with God, but praise God, they're saved. [00:21:19] See, it just doesn't fit. Anabaptist says, with buz vertikai, if you repented, you have a life of repentance. that you're always sinful. Here's one test. If someone comes to me and says, now Chester, your behavior is giving evidence of blah, blah, blah, blah. I say, that's none of your business, that's mine. Well, I'm not evidencing Bußfertigkeit. Because Bußfertigkeit would say, [00:21:51] if you come to me and you approach me about a problem in my life, The first response I would say, yes, thank you, I appreciate it, you're serving me as a brother, you're edifying me and helping me to get back into what I should be doing before God, thank you. That's finished repentance, as opposed to self-justification. And again, it's a recognition that God works with creative tension between two right principles, and there's some more illustration. [00:22:21] Now I want to really emphasize this thing at the bottom. No spiritually alive church survives from generation to generation without getting this concept right. I challenge you to find any, any church that has survived without getting this principle right. And this is why I am so humbly grateful. I feel extremely privileged to be among Anabaptist people who have kept this principle, at least in some parts of the church, for almost 500 years. [00:22:53] I think I'm talking to a group of people tonight who understands Christianity as discipleship. Who understand that Bußfertigkeit is the way we live. That discipleship must be lived. And when it's like this, then it can reproduce itself into the next generation. But any generation who does not get a hold of this principle, it just soon fades away. It can fade away. You can emphasize the right hand side. You can emphasize the practice without the principle and the faith will not be reproduced. [00:23:28] You can have an organization that's reproduced. You can have a group of people who reproduce themselves, but the faith is not reproduced. Or you can have a group of people who practice the inner, but don't have the outer. It lasts just for a little bit and then it goes away. It's just the way it is. Okay, along with this, you see, if we repent of our sins and we learn to know God for who he is, we love his word and we love his truth. I'm not sure if I shared this with you last time or not, but voluntarism is a part of this. [00:24:07] When God puts his laws in our hearts, we say, yes, Lord, anything you show me, yes, Lord, give me grace, Lord, to move into what you're showing me. We want to. We love to. We enjoy doing versus have to. If we're down here into have to, all these little arrows right here represent our flesh. Do I have to? Well, why do I have to? My flesh is at work. I'm opposing this. I don't want to. I really don't want to. I will if you make me. That's not the way Jesus' followers are. If you have boost verticate, where we repented of self and all its interests, we want to because we enjoy our relationship with Christ. Can you imagine a church full, I just wish that our young people could get a hold of this and sometimes when they don't get a hold of this there gets to be some very unpleasant situations well that's a whole subject and so we better not belabor that I forget what I shared and what I didn't but if we get a hold of this principle of life where we have a winning mentality where we have a winning mentality where we have a winning mentality [00:25:26] It's like discipleship to Jesus Christ is the greatest opportunity individual human beings have in life. What better thing would we want than to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? It's the biggest privilege we have in the face of the earth to be a disciple. Yeah, does it cost me anything? It costs me everything I have. It costs me my self-will. It costs me my flesh. Look at this. It costs me the world. It costs me the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life. But if I pursue those, it's a losing mentality because it all gets sucked down into this black hole of death. [00:26:06] Now, which is better? Death or life? Choose you this day who you'll serve. Christianity is all about life. Life in Him now and life in Him forever. All sounds wonderful, doesn't it? But here's what happens. This is very real. When people live this way, when Christianity is lived as discipleship and it's understood it must be more than talked about and thought about it, but it must be lived, it invites persecution. Now, I want someone to tell me from the audience [00:26:37] why persecution happens. You think, well, there shouldn't be any persecution with that. But it does. Now tell me why. When people are godly and they're living godly lives, It makes the people who are talking and not living feel guilty. And the most common way of dealing with that guilt is you've got to attack the person who's telling you. You've got to attack the person who's living right. You've got to attack the disciple. Think about the prophets. [00:27:09] You've got to attack the prophets. You can't handle their message, so you get rid of the messenger. It's that principle. It happens over and over and over. And my guess is that you have your own stories to tell on this one. It just is that way. Jesus said, if they have persecuted me, they will persecute you. And it will be that way until the end when he comes for us to take us home.