“Basic Christianity, Part 59:
Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnDKD1NMH4
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Tonight, we are concluding our Series, “Basic Christianity.” In August of 2020, after I had just concluded a Series, someone who was in attendance requested that I do a Series on Basic Christianity. So on August 16th of last year, I began this Series. Tonight is the 59th Installment of that Series. I would like, tonight, to briefly recap the nearly five dozen basic topics that we reviewed and examined. It will not be, as you can imagine, an in-depth recap for any of the basics. Each of the Installments is available for you to fully review in the 4G Forum. It is up-to-date as of last week's Discussion.
I presented these Installments as a Foundation to be built on. The basics that I presented over the course of these fifteen months are those things that virtually all Christians have in common. I did not zero in or dwell on any of the many points of non-essentials or division that exist in Christianity. My purpose was, in presenting this Series, to bring to light, perhaps for the first time for some hearers and readers, what Christians believe. And to show members of various Denominations just how much we have in common.
There should be no division among us. We all believe the true essentials, and God, as is clearly described in Romans 14, not only allows for, but warmly accepts and embraces our variant understandings where non-essentials are concerned. The trouble comes in where we elevate these non-essentials to the level of wedges and deal breakers. What is worse is that we go on to judge, reject and often condemn that brother and/or sister and/or Congregation and/or Denomination, if their understanding of a non-essential is not the same as ours.
Of this, the Apostle Paul writes, “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:4). But we go beyond the mere passing of judgment.
There are American-based Denominations, plural, each with memberships in the millions, who disown God's adopted children, and revoke the Salvation of any and all who draw alternate conclusions than theirs regarding non-essentials. I devoted an entire Installment to the Unity that Christ wants us to have, and the issue of the divisions and contentions that not only exist, but are even regarded as an acceptable facet of Christianity. It is not acceptable.
If anyone thinks it is acceptable, then I ask with the Apostle Paul, “Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:13). The correct answer is a resounding, “No.” God's Word provides us in no uncertain terms, a picture of the Unity we are to be striving for: “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ...”
“Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive...”
“But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:11-16).
David wrote, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1). Unity is the beating heart of Basic Christianity. Among us, there are differences: differences in understandings, differences in spiritual maturity, and cultural preferences that will cause us to worship God in a variety of expressions. But we need to keep in mind that God recognizes and accepts His children's differences as valid worship.
Again, deferring to Romans 14, regarding these differences the Apostle Paul explained, “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks...”
“For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” (Romans 14:5-10).
Having said that, I would now like to recap the major points I reviewed in this Series: We began by introducing and defining the Nature of God, the Jesus is God in the flesh, and establishing that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are One God is in complete harmony with the declaration of Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.”
This was followed by Jesus' prayer for the Unity of His Church. In His prayer on the night before His crucifixion, Matthew Henry wrote that Jesus prayed, “that they all may be one, one in us (in John 17:21), one as we are one (in John 17:22), made perfect in one, in John 17:23.
“That they might all be knit together in the bond of love and charity, all of one heart. That they all may be one, (1.) In judgment and sentiment; not in every little thing - this is neither possible nor needful, but in the great things of God, and in them, by the virtue of this prayer, they are all agreed - that God's favour is better than life - that sin is the worst of evils, Christ the best of friends - that there is another life after this, and the like.”
In the 5th Installment, I presented the love the Jesus Commanded us to have for one another as Foundational to Basic Christianity: I quoted Matthew Henry who wrote, “The reputation of their profession (in John 13:35): By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another. Observe, We must have love, not only show love, but have it in the root and habit of it, and have it when there is not any present occasion to show it; have it ready. “Hereby it will appear that you are indeed my followers by following me in this.” Note, Brotherly love is the badge of Christ's disciples.
Now by this it appears, (1.) That the heart of Christ was very much upon it, that his disciples should love one another. In this they must be singular; whereas the way of the world is to be every one for himself, they should be hearty for one another. He does not say, By this shall men know that you are my disciples - if you work miracles, for a worker of miracles is but a cypher without charity (see 1 Corinthians 13:1-2); but if you love one another from a principle of self-denial and gratitude to Christ. This Christ would have to be the proprium of his religion, the principal note of the true church.”
In the 6th Installment, I presented our loving one another as a New Commandment, quoting Adam Clarke's Commentary: We read, “In what sense are we to understand that this was a new commandment? Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, was a positive precept of the law, (see Leviticus 19:18), and it is the very same that Christ repeats here; how then was it new? Our Lord answers this question, Even As I have loved you.
Now Christ more than fulfilled the Mosaic precept; he not only loved his neighbor As himself, but he loved him More than himself, for he laid down his life for men. In this he calls upon the disciples to imitate him; to be ready on all occasions to lay down their lives for each other. This was, strictly, a new commandment: no system of morality ever prescribed any thing so pure and disinterested as this. Our blessed Lord has outdone all the moral systems in the universe in two words: 1. Love your enemies; 2. Lay down your lives for each other.”
The Sermon Bible added: “I. The new commandment has been once for all uttered—the new law is given; and each generation, at whatever point of the advance to its fulfilment God may have ordained its place, is bound by it equally. Every individual Christian lives under the force of that law, and is responsible to Him for obedience to it. Such obedience is, in fact, each generation’s portion of that upward work into fulness of love, which the Holy Spirit is carrying on in the whole race.”
In the next Installment, I presented the unfathomable love that God has for us: John wrote, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God” (1 John 3:1). I followed that with Alexander MacClaren comments: “So we have to turn to the work of Christ, and especially to His death, if we would estimate the love of God. According to John’s constant teaching, that is the great proof that God loves us.
The most wonderful revelation to every heart of man of the depths of that Divine heart lies in the gift of Jesus Christ. The Apostle bids me ‘behold what manner of love.’ I turn to the Cross, and I see there a love which shrinks from no sacrifice, but gives ‘Him up to death for us all.’
In the next Installment, I presented loving our enemies as a facet of Basic Christianity. Again, Alexander MacClaren wrote, “We are not only to allow no stirring of malice in our feelings, but we are to let kindly emotions bear fruit in words blessing the cursers, and in deeds of goodness, and, highest of all, in prayers for those whose hate is bitterest, being founded on religion, and who are carrying it into action in persecution. We cannot hate a man if we pray for him; we cannot pray for him if we hate him.
Our weakness often feels it so hard not to hate our enemies, that our only way to get strength to keep this highest, hardest commandment is to begin by trying to pray for the foe, and then we gradually feel the infernal fires dying down in our temper, and come to be able to meet his evil with good, and his curses with blessings. It is a difficult lesson that Jesus sets us. It is a blessed possibility that Jesus opens for us, that our kindly emotions towards men need not be at the mercy of theirs to us.”
Next I shared with you our being a New Creation, quoting Romans 6:3-8: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
In the next Installment, I presented our being, in Jesus' words, the light of the world and the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13-16). We looked next at putting on ~ being clothed with ~ Christ. I quoted the Sermon Bible: “We note in this Scripture that the clothing which God found for Adam could only have been obtained at the cost of a life, and that the life of one unguilty, of one who had no share or part in the sin which made the providing of it needful. We have here the first institution of sacrifice; God Himself is the institutor. It is a type and shadow, a prelude and prophecy of the crowning sacrifice on Calvary.
In the next six Installments, I deferred to John's First Epistle where he declared the love that we as Christians have received from God, and the love that we, in response, should be living, loving one another and striving for Unity. I followed this with six Installments in which I reviewed and examined the appearance of the words “one another,” and their appearance as a concept in Scripture.
I quoted Matthew Henry in the 6th Installment of the words “one another:” who wrote, “Between the Jews and the Gentiles there had been a great enmity; so there is between God and every unregenerate man. Now Jesus Christ is our peace, (see Ephesians 2:14). He made peace by the sacrifice of himself; and came to reconcile, 1. Jews and Gentiles to each other.
He made both one, by reconciling these two divisions of men, who were wont to malign, to hate, and to reproach each other before. He broke down the middle wall of partition, the ceremonial law, that made the great feud, and was the badge of the Jews' peculiarity, called the partition-wall by way of allusion to the partition in the temple, which separated the court of the Gentiles from that into which the Jews only had liberty to enter.
Thus he abolished in his flesh the enmity, (in Ephesians 2:15). By his sufferings in the flesh, to took away the binding power of the ceremonial law (so removing that cause of enmity and distance between them), which is here called the law of commandments contained in ordinances, because it enjoined a multitude of external rites and ceremonies, and consisted of many institutions and appointments about the outward parts of divine worship. The legal ceremonies were abrogated by Christ, having their accomplishment in him.”
In the next eight Installments, I presented our Christian walk as a facet of Basic Christianity. I introduced the sub-topic of that walk with these words: To walk is to be in motion. Walking is not standing still, and walking is not hesitation or faltering or retreat. Jesus warns us about staying focused in our walk: “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). The Christian Walk is a walk in a determined direction, and with a fixed destination in mind.
Old Testament believers were also taught about the godly walk they should follow. We read, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye” (Psalm 32:8). In Proverbs 4:24-27, we read, “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.”
I invested two Installments to our walking in light. I wrote, “It's not just that we walked in darkness. The Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:8: “For ye WERE sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.” We WERE darkness, but now, because of God's intervention in our lives, sending His Son to save us, and giving His Holy Spirit to indwell us, we ARE light, and we are to walk in that light.
Of this, Alexander MacCLaren writes, What Children of Light Should Be: It was our Lord who coined this great name for His disciples. Paul’s use of it is probably a reminiscence of the Master’s, and so is a hint of the existence of the same teachings as we now find in the existing Gospels, long before their day. Jesus Christ said, ‘Believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light’;
and Paul gives substantially the same account of the way by which a man becomes a Son of the Light when he says, in the words preceding my text, ‘Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.’ Union with Him makes light, just as the bit of carbon will glow as long as it is in contact with the electric force, and subsides again into darkness when that is switched off. To be in Christ is to be a child of light, and to believe in Christ is to be in Him.
But the intense moral earnestness of our Apostle is indicated by the fact that on both occasions in which he uses this designation he does so, not for the purpose of heightening the sense of the honour and prerogative attached to it, but for the sake of deducing from it plain and stringent moral duties, and heightening the sense of obligation to holy living.
‘Walk as children of light.’ Be true to your truest, deepest self. Manifest what you are. Let the sweet, sacred secrets of inward communion come out in the trivialities of ordinary conduct; make of your every thought a deed, and see to it that every deed be vitalised and purified by its contact with the great truths and thoughts that lie in this name.
The true reading is, ‘Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light’ (not spirit, as the Authorised Version reads it) ‘is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.’ Now, it is obvious that the alteration of ‘light’ instead of ‘spirit’ brings the words into connection with the preceding and the following. The reference to the ‘fruits of the spirit’ would be entirely irrelevant in this place; a reference to the ‘fruit of the light,’ as being every form of goodness and righteousness and truth, is altogether in place.
There is, then, a natural tendency in the light to blossom out into all forms and types of goodness. ‘Fruit’ suggests the idea of natural, silent, spontaneous, effortless growth. And, although that is by no means a sufficient account of the process by which bad men become good men, it is an inseparable element, in all true moral renovation, that it be the natural outcome and manifestation of an inward principle; otherwise it is mere hypocritical adornment, or superficial appearance. If we are to do good we must first of all be good.
If from us there are to come righteousness and truth, and all other graces of character, there must, first of all, be the radical change which is involved in passing from separateness in the darkness to union with Jesus Christ in the light. The Apostle’s theory of moral renovation is that you must begin with the implantation in the spirit of the source of all moral goodness, namely Jesus Christ - brought into the heart by the uniting power of humble faith. And then there will be lodged in our being a vital power, of which the natural outcome will be all manner of fair and pure things. Effort is needed, as I shall have to say; but prior to effort there must be union with Jesus Christ.
‘Nothing of itself will come,’ or very little. True, the light will shine out in variously tinted ray if it be in a man, as surely as from the seed come the blade and the ear and the full corn in the ear, but you will not have nor keep the light which thus will unfold itself unless you put forth appropriate effort. Christ comes into our hearts, but we have to bring Him there. Christ dwells in our hearts, but we have to work into our nature, and work out in action, the gifts that He bestows.
‘Walk as children of the light.’ There is your duty, for ‘the fruit of the light is all righteousness.’ One might have supposed that the commandments would be, ‘Be passive as children of the light, for the light will grow.’ But the Apostle binds together, as always, the two things, the divine working and the human effort at reception, retention, and application of that divine work, just as he does in the great classical passage, ‘Work out your own salvation, for it is God that worketh in you.’”
In another Installment regarding our Christian Walk, I quoted Psalm 26:3: “For thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth.” I shared Matthew Henry's insight on this: “For the operations of God's grace in him, [David] prays that God would give him, (1.) An understanding heart, that he would inform and instruct him concerning his duty: “Teach me thy way, O Lord! the way that thou hast appointed me to walk in; when I am in doubt concerning it, make it plain to me what I should do; let me hear the voice saying, This is the way,” (see Isaiah 30:21).
III. David was well taught in the things of God, and yet was sensible he needed further instruction, and many a time could not trust his own judgment: Teach me thy way; I will walk in thy truth. One would think it should be, Teach me thy truth, and I will walk in thy way; but it comes all to one; it is the way of truth that God teaches and that we must choose to walk in, (see Psalm 119:30). Christ is the way and the truth, and we must both learn Christ and walk in him.
We cannot walk in God's way and truth unless he teach us; and, if we expect he should teach us, we must resolve to be governed by his teachings. (2.) An upright heart: “Unite my heart to fear thy name. Make me sincere in religion. A hypocrite has a double heart; let mine be single and entire for God, not divided between him and the world, not straggling from him.
Our hearts are apt to wander and hang loose; their powers and faculties wander after a thousand foreign things; we have therefore need of God's grace to unite them, that we may serve God with all that is within us, and all little enough to be employed in his service. “Let my heart be fixed for God, and firm and faithful to him, and fervent in serving him; that is a united heart.”
In the sixth of the eight Installments regarding our Christian Walk, I quoted Ephesians 5:1-2 we read, “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”
The Sermon Bible told us of these verses, “Christ’s Acts of Love the Christian’s Model. I. Christ took our flesh that in it He might go up and down among us; that in it He might be seen by us; that in it He might speak to us, and leave deeds and words which might, in characters of love, be traced in our souls, and there live on for ever. He came among us in order to set before us, in His own Divine person, the loveliness, and beauty, and majesty of Divine love and Divine holiness.
The life of Christ is the whole sum of the Christian’s life. Whatever holiness the Holy Spirit has wrought in any of the saints is wrought after that pattern. By meditating on that life, we live with Him, converse with Him, enter into His holy and hallowing society. Through studying Him we know how to follow Him; through following Him we understand what we study.
And so, by a continual round, the contemplation of Him kindles our souls to long to be like Him and to copy Him; to copy Him enlightens our eyes, and clears away the film which dims their sight; and that sight, through His Spirit, transforms our spirits into the likeness of Him whom we behold.”
In the 31st Installment, I began a letter by letter acrostic examination of the phrase, “By Growing In Grace.” For all of the remaining weeks, we looked at words or phrases, and verses and then commentaries corresponding to each letter.
“B” stood for “Believe In Him” and
“Y” stood for “Yield.”
“G” stood for Growing,
“R” stood for “Read and Study His Word,”
“O” stood for “Obey His Commands,”
“W” stood for “Worship Him,”
“I” stood for “Jesus' Eight 'I AM' Statements,” including, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” taking to Himself the very Name of God. The remaining seven I AM statements are:
1.) “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).
2.) “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12).
3.) “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9).
4.) “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
5.) “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (John 11:25).
6.) “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6), and
7.) “I am the True Vine and My Father is the Husbandman” (John 15:1).
In finishing the last two letters in the word, "Growing,"the “N” stood for “ and “Nothing Held Back,” and
“G” stood for “Give Thanks”
For the word, “In,”
“I” stood for “Increase in Bearing Fruit,” and
“N” stood for “Never Doubt God.”
For the word, “Grace,”
“G” stood for “Go To Church,”
“R” stood for “Redeem the Time,”
“A” stood for “Abstain From All Appearance of Evil,” and
“C” stood for “Conquer Temptation.”
And last week we finished looking at the final “E” in “Grace,” which stood for the many Examples Jesus set for us:
Holiness, Love and Humility, and Obedience unto death, Meekness, Self-Denial, Taking Up Our Own Cross, and Bearing One Another's Burdens, Ministering to Others. We also looked at the Example Jesus left for us that is absolutely critical to Basic Christianity, namely, Forgiving Offenses and Injuries Committed Against Us. Last week, we reviewed and examined Overcoming the World, and Goodness.”
It is my sincere hope that I have presented for you all a good foundation of what Basic Christianity is, how we are to conduct ourselves as Christian Believers, how God looks to us to bear the Fruit of the Spirit, and how, in all of the things we do, and all of the things we refrain from doing, we are to bring Glory and Honor to God.
In the coming weeks, God willing, between now and the first week in January, it is my plan to present to you Seasonal Discussions on Thanksgiving, and the coming of God's Promised Messiah, Who was promised through the prophets to Israel, but also, as the angel declared to the shepherds on the night Jesus was born, “Good tidings of great joy which shall be for all people.”
And then, in January, as we celebrate the dawn of a New Year, I plan to share with you an in depth review of our status as New Creatures. I hope as many of you who are hearing or reading these words can join me in the coming weeks.
This concludes this evening's Discussion, and our Series, “Basic Christianity, Part 59 .”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on November 17th, 2021.
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