Sermon: The Blessings of Confessionalism: Unity and Purity

If you take a copy of God's word this morning, you're going to turn open to the book of Romans. If you wanna grab a Pew Bible, turn right open to page 950. In the Pew Bible This morning we're looking at Romans chapter 16 verse 17, that we're gonna back up to verse 16 and read down to verse 18. For those of you visiting with us this morning, uh, we take a break from our preaching through a book of the Bible here in January.

We do what we call our faith focus. And just on these Sundays here in January, we preach on something that we want to see more in the DNA of our church. And this year our faith focus, we are calling rooted, confessionally connected. And so we are looking at the idea that we are a confessional church and what that means that we are confessional. And this morning, our second week we're looking at Romans 16 and this morning, verse 17 though I want

to back up to 16 and read through 18 for a little context and help for us. So let's pray before we open God's word together this morning.

Father, we are thankful that you have not left us to ourselves, that you have given us this word as a bright light in a dark world to reveal to us who you are, what it is it is that you desire from us. We pray this morning that we would know your voice, that we would hear it. He would press home to us the great truths of the scripture and the great gift we have to stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us.

Thank you for calling us together this morning. Be with us as you've promised to be and minister to us we pray in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Romans chapter 16 verses 16 through 18. This is the holy ander sufficient word of God,

greet to one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Avoid them for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites. And by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. Though the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of God is forever.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

We made the case last week from the scriptures for Confessionalism as we looked at a couple of different texts and just a reminder, confessionalism or the confessions or creeds that we profess all confessions are all creeds are are an attempt by the church to summarize and articulate what the scriptures teach. So we are summarizing or articulating what the scriptures teach. And this morning what I want to do is look at uh,

confessions and creeds, especially confessionalism and I want to see two blessings that flow from it and that is unity and that is purity as we discussed last week. It's necessary. It's essential. Every church, every Christian has a confession or a creed. That's just reality and it's necessary. And as we think about fruits that flow from confessionalism and especially being a confessionally connected church, this idea of unity

and of purity is absolutely essential. And by God's grace flows from it. If you and I were to take the New Testament and we were to sit down this afternoon and in through the night and read through the New Testament and tried to catalog every single passage that addressed either unity or addressed purity, it would almost feel like it was an endless task that was before us because the New Testament, and even we could say the entire scriptures,

but the New Testament is, is filled with this. It's on the lips or on the pin of every single New Testament writer. It's not only their concern, it's also the concern of the Lord Jesus Christ. You think about his longest recorded prayer that we have in John chapter 17, the core of that prayer, the main thrust of that prayer is that we would be one unity. He is in incredibly stern and he is forceful with the Pharisees.

Why? Because they are teaching the people and he is leading them astray from purity.

Much of Jesus's teaching and ministry is about purity and about the unity of God's people around truth. In fact, we could say it this way, we could say that one of the chief reasons that Jesus, the son of God came into the world and that he lived and that he died was for unity and for purity. You think back to the garden and think back. When Adam and Eve are in the garden and that father of lies, Satan comes to them and he tempts them.

What does he tempt them with with that which is not pure in doctrine that is God really good? Did he actually say and gets them to buy into a lie? And what is the result of that lack of purity of of sticking to that sound doctrine that they knew about who God was? Well immediately you have disunity, you have division, they have division with God. But of course it's not just God. They're also divided from one another. They're hiding from one another.

And then when God appears to them, they are accusing one another. And then you go immediately after the fall from Genesis three to Genesis chapter four and what happens, you have the essence of it where Cain, murders Abel and a very real sense the son of God came into the world. We could say at the very least to address unity and purity.

They are two sides of the same coin and can't be separated. And I want to submit to you this morning that confessionalism adhering to a confession as a church actually helps to maintain both unity and purity. There's a reason that the church from Deuteronomy six, as we saw last week through the ages up until the present time that it confesses what it believes. Let's think through this from the text this morning. I want to go back to verse 16.

Verse 16 follows Paul walking through an extended greeting where he mentions all kinds of disparate people and he is addressing each of these people, brothers and sisters in Christ. And then he says in verse 16, greet one another with a holy kiss. Now this is not foreign for Paul in many of his letters he speaks about this holy kiss and it wasn't just something in Paul's letters. We also see evidence of it in the early church.

Tullian will call it a kiss of peace. We have Justin who in one of his letters speaks about that between the prayer of intercession what Pastor Kevin did this morning and the collection of the tis and offerings, there was this holy kiss that was exchanged between the brothers and sisters in worship. In fact, we often see it in the early church that before they came to the Lord's table they would give one another a holy kiss.

And we are coming to the Lord's table this morning, but we won't do that. But why is it that they did this? Surely it was to remind one another that they were united and to safeguard that truth among themselves. Thus it makes sense that Paul immediately says in verse 17 he says, watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Avoid them. He is concerned about unity

and he ties that to purity. They are two sides of the same coin. They they, they can't be separated. They go together and they are his concern, the doctrine that you have been taught unity and purity. Now what's interesting is that Paul did not start the church in Rome. That is he did not teach all of these members of the church in Rome. In fact, we know that he only taught some of them. And so it must be that Paul is referencing here

a corpus of teaching that was considered the core of Christian teaching in the early church. That is something the doctrine that they all received what we might call a confession of faith. There were those in the church of Rome that were denying this what they had been taught, what the church had confessed. And what Paul is saying is not that doctrine divides now he's saying the exact opposite. It is in fact those who do not hold to the doctrine,

that divide, they cause divisions. He says they create obstacles how? Because someone is teaching something that is contrary to what they have all received. And by doing that, some in the church are grabbing a hold of it and believing it and others are rightfully rejecting it. And so it has caused division and it causes division in a local church.

Some of you have lived this, experienced this

or a new teaching comes in, a different teaching comes in and divisions begin to erupt and disagreement begins to happen and accusations start to happen and the church is divided. And some of you have been through that painful process and you've had to leave a church that you loved and people that you loved and never be here.

But Paul's point is not just division within the local church that comes when we receive contrary to the doctrine that we've been told, we also divide ourselves from the greater church. Notice Paul's reminding the church in Rome that they are not an island unto themselves. They are connected. He says in verse 16, right before launching into this warning, all the churches of Christ greet you a confessional church, a church that receives the doctrine

that has been taught has connection within, we have connection within our local church but we also have connection without To the Big C church.

It's connected to other churches. And this is how it's supposed to be where one body with one head, there's only one holy Catholic and apostolic church. You confess that we confess that what we're connected within and without, we're connected by the Christ to whom we belong to and by the confession in him that we have made. And to maintain both unity and purity you, you have to be able to summarize. You have to be able to articulate

and hold to what the Bible teaches more than simply paring a verse. There has to be doctrine.

A doctrine that you have been taught used to have a church history seminary professor that would stand up and he did this over and over. He would hold up the Bible like this and he would go, Bible, Bible, Bible. Everybody believes the Bible. And what did he mean by that? He Meant that every heretic in the history of The church, Every person teaching air in the history of the Church Has had a verse. They've even had Verses

Me, my Bible and the Holy Spirit alone is not Christian, let alone biblical. They were teaching contrary to the doctrine they had been taught.

We Believe in sola scripture. Scripture alone but not solo scripture. Scripture only solo scripture, solo scripture advocates a a radical individualism rejecting that the church and creeds and confessions have any authority. It embraces a kind of private judgment above all else. Whereas sola scripture, what the reformation was about and what the reformers held to and believed believes that the scriptures are the authority in faith in life.

Everything is subject to them including creeds, including confessions as we said last week. But the reformers themselves and you could go through all of the reformers, you could go from Calvin to Luther to Lenan, to beza to buser and on we could go, they had confessions, in fact almost to a man. They wrote confessions for their congregations or catechisms for their congregations and they believed in so the scripture, but they would've viewed any

anti-real any anticon confessional theology as anti-Christian because it's radically individualistic where I become the authority.

Why? Because none of us exists as an island to ourselves. Again, Paul here all the churches of Christ greet you. You're connected Romans the doctrine you have been taught once you confess Christ, we become part of something bigger than ourselves. We become part of the church.

Let's say hey Hodge said, well when he said the real question is not as often pretended between the word of God and the creed of men, but between the tried and proved faith of the collective body of God's people and the private judgment and the unassisted wisdom of the repudiate of creeds, our faith, our theology, our living are always done by examining the whole council of God as we referenced last week within the whole community

of faith, the whole community of faith.

I say that purposely 'cause I want us to understand the implications

we're connected to the church of today, but we're connected to the whole community of faith, which means that we're connected to the church of yesterday

and we'll be connected to the church of tomorrow and that's absolutely essential for you and I to understand. We must always consider more than ourselves, especially in our day. We have to consider the church of yesterday and our unity and purity in accord with it.

David Wells once wrote, it's the conceit and modernity that the past is nothing more than a dead weight. That constant innovation is the only key to a better life and a richer truth.

It seems to me that one of the ways that the Lord seems to graciously help us to preserve both unity and to preserve purity is by putting us in relation with the churches of today, but not that alone, but with the churches of yesterday.

So there is real conceit in thinking that I know better than all the church before me. There's a real arrogance to think that the spirit's work and the present age is greater than in the time of the reformers or the time of the early church or even the time of the apostles. Yet that's where some land we are united to them and have received the pure faith from them.

An elder here at URC recently said this to me.

He said one of the grand benefits of the Westminster standards or we could say any orthodox confession, is that it can produce meekness. We're sitting upon the shoulders of others and others through the centuries and contrary to being cultish, if the de debate heats up, the Presbyterian must always ask, what did Moses or Paul or Jesus say? That's exactly right, creeds and confessions that they ground us,

they ground us more than the shifting stands of the present so that we maintain unity and peace holding on to the doctrine that we have been taught instead of causing division among one another and creating obstacles for one another's faith. If something is new in the 21st century, you should be skeptical if, if something is new in the 20th century in the church you should be skeptical. If there was something new in the 16th century,

you should be skeptical.

As Cy Sproul said, he said, although tradition does not rule or interpretation, it does guide it. If upon reading a particular passage you have come up with an interpretation that has escaped the notice of every other Christian for 2000 years, chances are pretty good that you had better abandon your interpretation.

There's a reason that Calvin and the Institutes is on every page citing church father after church, father after church father, as he's making his arguments from scripture because it's not new

and he wants Francis the first of king, of the King of France to understand that unity and purity are two sides of the same coin and confessionalism helps to safeguard them.

Let me step on some toes with an example this morning.

There are some in the reformed world of recent days that are advocating for pat communion that young children prior to a confession of faith should be given the elements of the table, the bread and the cup.

But this was not held in the early church nor has it been held in the reformed church through the ages. In fact, there's not even a mention of it in church history until 2 51 ad and that's one obscure reference and then there is silence for another 150 years and that one obscure reference is from CPR and the church father who mentions it. And you have to read an awful lot of intent into that, that he's taking a positive view of it.

In fact, the very context for which he is even mentioning it is that the church has fallen away from the truth. And so God's judgment has come upon the church and one of the signs that has fallen away from the church is that it is now indiscriminately giving the table all kinds of people.

But it's not only true that it's not there in the early church, just not been in the reform tradition ever. Joel Beke, when he is looking at this said about Protestant reform's history, he has said simply these liturgies and directories show that paid to communion has no place in the beliefs or practices of the reformers or the Westminster Divines meaning the Westminster assembly. And that should make us at least skeptical

when someone begins advocating for pato communion in our day. Why? Because the church through the ages that we are united with and are to maintain purity with has not believed and practiced it.

Now that doesn't mean that we can completely disregard it. History and tradition are not the authority, but it does mean that you and I are to be skeptical and then we are to search to scriptures and it should be that we must be overwhelmed by the teaching of scripture to do something different and to believe something different than the church has ever believed.

And yet if we look at the scriptures, We would see Paul warning in one Corinthians 11. Anyone who comes to the table must be able to quote, examine himself and must be able to discern the body of the Lord. That is he must examine himself and be able to say that I know that I'm in the faith, I know I belong to Christ and he must be able to discern the body of the Lord. That is that as we come to the table and you take that bread

and you drink that cup that you are spiritually feasting upon the body of Christ and the blood of Christ and this isn't snack time. Children can't do that yet. There are those that would divide a local church and would divide the church of today from the church of yesterday by advocating such of you.

And what does Paul say? He says you're to avoid them. You're not even supposed to be listening to such people. Avoid them.

The church through the Ages didn't believe this nor practice this for a reason because it's not Biblical. In fact, if we returned to one Corinthians 11 there you'll see that poll actually gives a warning. He, he's warning that some of them have come to the table unworthily because they couldn't discern this and they've grown sick and some have even died.

The church has understood this.

Those advocating for Pato communion thinking that they're giving blessing to the children of the church when in fact They're Harming the children of the church. There's a Reason the church has not Believed or practiced this. It's not biblical. We must Be overwhelmed by the teaching of scriptures to believe and practice something the church has not.

Again, the church does not determine truth but identifies what is already true.

This is why Jesus is so hard in the Pharisees. They're teaching falsely and injuring both the unity and the purity of the people of God and and our good shepherd. He he just, he wants us to be unified and he just wants there to be peace within.

Lemme close with five specific ways that being a confessionally connected church helps to safeguard unity and purity. First confessionalism helps to safeguard unity and purity by equipping us not to embrace every new theological or cultural fad. I've just referred to the theological, so let me not address the theological but the cultural we, we live in a day in which novelty and our culture is celebrated. Everything that has been a norm is being turned on its head.

And listen, the church is going to have these cultural pressures brought to bear upon it. You see this across the landscape of the church. It is necessarily so. We live in a culture and so what is changing in the culture and the things that are happening in the culture are going to bring pressure upon the church and the church will conform to the culture

in unless it is grounded, unless it is rooted and we are grounded in more than the shifting sands of the present. Our creeds and our confessions. They seek to bind our consciences according to the scriptures and so we have our Bibles and we have our confessions that articulate what the Bible teaches to guide us toward the unchanging truths of history. It equips us both to withstand new theological fads and cultural fads grounds us

second relatedly. Confessionalism helps to safeguard unity and purity by nurturing humility and meekness. I need not just want, I need the greater church and so do you.

Why? Because I'm a sinner. The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately sick. I have natural inclinations, I have natural tendencies. I have things that I just know within me to be true that frankly need to be pulled and need to be pushed and need to be challenged by the greater church. I need that and so do you. Confessionalism helps to safeguard unity and purity by nurturing, humility and meekness. I always have to check myself

with the greater church.

Third, confessionalism helps to safeguard unity and purity by hemming and preaching and teaching. It makes sure that I as your pastor am held accountable. You want me held accountable because I'm dangerous if I'm not held accountable. It's for your safekeeping.

You want me held accountable so that I am not teaching contrary to the doctrine that we have been taught. It helps to make it harder for me by force of personality or charisma or because of our trusted relationship. We love each other and know each other to lead you down a path of air. We're connected confessionally and thus I am bound to the rest of the churches and the rest of the pastors and the rest of the elders in our presbytery

and our denomination so that they have a real responsibility for me and for my teaching so that I can be charged, I can be disciplined, I can be removed. I can even be defrocked if I am teaching. Contrary to the doctrine that we received, the doctrine that I've confessed, that I believe and the doctrine that I've confessed, that I and profess that I will teach and preach. It safeguards you forth. Confessionalism helps to safeguard unity

and purity by increasing freedom, by increasing freedom. Ligon Duncan once said something along these lines. He said, when we have been so-called freed from any meaningful adherence to an established confession, the church finds itself not free but captive to tyranny, to the tyranny of the 50% plus one majority of its leadership, but that cannot happen in a confessionally connected church unless we abandon our confession.

As I tell each about your C class as I go in there once a semester, You don't Have believe everything that the church church's leadership believes.

You Only have to hold to the primary doctrines of our faith, the the content of the Apostles Creed. For example, You don't have to be Presbyterian, You don't have to be Reformed, You don't have To be confessional in this sense Westminster confessional. You don't have to Be complimentarian.

You can Simply Be A Christian. You can confess less, but you want your leaders confessing more.

We don't hide in that class. We don't hide from this pulpit what we believe. If you're going to join this church, we want you to know what the church's leadership holds to. Again, you don't have to believe all of it, but you want them to.

Why? Because it frees you.

It frees you. It helps to maintain unity and purity. You don't have to wonder what does Pastor Jason and Pastor Kevin and Pastor Nate and Pastor Nick and Elder Evan Vander Way and Elder Pat Quinn and Deacon John Lane and Deacon Tom Caldwell, what do they believe about this primary and even most secondary doctrines? You know what they believe because they've confessed it and they're bound by it. You don't have to worry this spring when we

Add new elders to the session, You don't have to worry whether things are going to radically Change in this church, what it holds to what you'll hear from this pulpit, what we will do in our ministries Because they are Bound and so It gives you freedom As you come into this place To know that you can freely worship. You are not going to hear a different Sermon This week from last Week that contradicts last week. You are going to hear this week

that we're changing everything that we believe Going forward as a church or even some things. Were bound and so you can come into this place and you can freely worship. You know that you're not going to get a different gospel. You're going to hear a weak and and week out that the Son of God came down from heaven and he lived for sinners and he died a atoning death for sinners upon the cross and all you have to do is receive it by faith.

You know it and you can freely worship.

It seems to me one of the great provisions of our good shepherd, it is just a's tender mercy both as our good shepherd and as the head of the church that Jesus has taught us biblically and provided for us historically to be a confessional people because he wants us thriving in the freedom of the gospel. He doesn't want us constantly divided.

He doesn't want us constantly at odds. He doesn't want us constantly coming up with new things to try and change each other's beliefs about this or that it's part of his tenderness and care that he unites us in this way with those before and those after. Finally, confessionalism helps to safeguard unity and purity by affording a common base from which to engage in ministry. We pray this that Jesus's kingdom would come on earth

as it is in heaven and it is going forward. In one of the the great, I think the greatest privileges under the sun is that he gives you and I responsibility for his kingdom going forward that we get to participate in this great work. It's just staggering and there is a great work that is before us. There is an awful lot of do. There are a lot of souls that are trapped in darkness. There are a lot of saints that need to grow in maturity.

There's a lot to be done.

When our elders meet as we just did this last Thursday night, we spend our time in prayer for you. We spend our time walking through shepherding issues regarding you. We spend our time thinking and visioning about the ministry that is before us. You know what we don't do? We don't have to sit there and haggle every meeting over whether Christ is truly two natures in one person. As you confess this morning. We don't have to haggle whether there are two sacraments

or there are five sacraments. We don't have to debate whether this next election time around that we, whether we add women to the list of those who are eligible to be nominated as elders in this church. We don't have to debate whether next week we are going to do covenantal baptism, baptize some children again or whether you know what we did that last month and we're never going to do it again. We don't have to have those discussions

and we can get on with the ministry.

You may not agree with all those things. Again, you don't have to,

but you want a leadership that does agree on those things. You want that so that the unity and the purity of this church is safeguarded and we can be busy about the work before us.

Our unity and our purity is no small thing

without hesitation. We could say Christ came and died so that we could be unified and hold the truth and confessionalism I would maintain is one of the best ways to maintain the fruit of unity and purity. We are rooted by God's grace being confessionally connected and by that grace, the benefits that flow from it, our unity and purity.

I want to give you a couple applications as we come to the table this this morning, but I'm gonna do that when we head to the table, but my great prayer is that unity and purity is maintained here. Maybe pray that more for our congregation than anything else. Lord, preserve the peace and the purity of URC because it is so absolutely essential and I truly believe Confessionalism is one of the gifts he has given to us to help maintain it.

Let's pray.

Our Father, we are thankful for the saints that have come before us and handed this sound doctrine on to us,

and thank you for those that have given their lives for it, those that have attended to it with their lives.

Thank you that in this place that there is unity around this in our leadership and we pray that you would help us to hold fast to our confession, that the unity and the purity of this church would withstand all the assaults of this day. In Christ's name, amen.