Harvest Pointe Christian Church, Milford Ohio is a non-denominational Christian Church (Church of Christ) on the Eastside of Cincinnati OH

About Our Country | Series: Have you ever wondered? | 07-05-09

About Our Country
Series: Have you ever wondered?
Matt. 22:15-22

Question #1: Should the church get involved in political issues?

Question #2: Should Christians be supportive of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? 

Question #3: Can America return to her spiritual roots?

Full Text 

The church at Jerusalem didn't understand why Simon Peter had taken the gospel to Gentiles.  Acts 11 says the believers questioned Peter about why he was welcoming these outcasts into their fellowship. 
    
So Peter, starting from the beginning, explained what happened.  God had commanded that he go to the house of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion.  He went reluctantly.  But as he was preaching about Jesus, the Holy Spirit descended on Cornelius just as he had on the Apostles on Pentecost and Peter realized God wanted Cornelius and his family to be baptized and included in the kingdom.
    
Acts 11:18 reads, "When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, 'So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.'"  Notice, the believers asked a concerned question, Peter answered it honestly, and the church was satisfied and unified. 
    
I hope that's the result of what we do here today as we try to answer questions you asked about the church.  You submitted a wide variety of questions about church doctrine and policy for this series, "You Asked For it."  It's impossible to answer all the questions but I'm going to tackle the ones that were asked the most frequently.
    
We have an age-old slogan that says, "In doctrine unity, in opinion liberty, and in all things love."  Let's repeat that together.  "In doctrine unity, in opinion liberty and in all things love."  On some of these issues we have clear Biblical direction and in others we don't.  Where the Bible speaks we're going to stand without wavering.  Where it doesn't speak clearly we're going to apply Biblical principles but allow for differences of opinion.
    
Some of them we've answered in the past but it's obvious from your repeated questions that it would be helpful to deal with them again.  Fasten your spiritual seatbelts because we're traveling in a lot of different directions in this message.
   
Here's the first:  Why can't we have more traditional hymns when we worship?  (Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 33 and hold it for a moment.  That's page 397 in the Bibles provided in the back of the seats.)
    
In the last 20 years the American Church has experienced a music and worship reformation.  Dramatic changes have taken place in churches all across the country.  There have been numerous articles in Christian periodicals about the worship wars.  Churches have argued and even split over music styles.  It's common, in many churches, for older people to go home grumbling about the loud, repetitious, un-inspirational music.  Dr. Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Seminary, complained, "Contemporary worship is one thought, two words, and three hours!"
    
But I was with two young couples recently who said, "We love our church.  But just about the time we get a good worship service going, they throw an old hymn in there and it breaks the momentum."
    
The previous week we had sung, "The Old Rugged Cross" and I had just loved it.  I said, "Didn't you like "The Old Rugged Cross"?  They responded, "No, we just don't like those old, draggy songs."  The older people grumble about not enough hymns while the younger people grumble about too many.
   
Music is such a subjective medium.  What one person loves, another hates.  It's impossible to please everyone.  So some churches have decided to be totally contemporary.  They think that's the wave of the future so they bite the bullet, endure the complaints, disregard the defections, and go on.  Others have retained tradition and do only hymns but appeal to very few young people. 
    
For quite some time we have had a blended service, doing both contemporary choruses and old hymns and ticking everyone off to some degree!  Admittedly we do a lot more contemporary than traditional songs.  But the median age of our church membership is 38, and that's not including the little children who have not yet been baptized. 
    
Years ago, on a Wednesday night, I performed an experiment that backfired on me.  I thought Greg Allen was using too much contemporary music.  I was confident most were moved by my favorite style-Southern Gospel (you know, Gaither music).  I knew that's what really warmed people up.  So I set out to prove my point.  I played five different styles - from liturgical to Christian rock - and asked people to choose the one style of music that most ministered to their soul.  I just knew my style would be the favorite. 
   
I was surprised!  There was an equal number of people who voted for each style-except one.  There were twice as many that preferred contemporary music.   
    
Let's see a show of hands here today.  Raise your hand if your preference would be the singing of hymns only.  Raise your hand if you prefer singing contemporary music only.  Raise your hand if you prefer blended-singing both. 
  
Now if you chose blended, I want you to raise your hand if you prefer more hymns?  Fewer hymns?  Leave it as it is?  No fair raising two hands at a time! 
    
Let's read Psalm 33:3, "Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy."  Nine times the Bible encourages or endorses the singing of a new song.  Worship is to be a fresh expression of praise, not an empty ritual.
    
Some of those old hymns have great words and need to be sung.  But I can sing those old songs without paying any attention.  I'm too familiar with them and I can do them by rote.  But the new songs force me to look at the words and pay attention.  The new sound reminds us God is not just a God of the past, He is God of the present and the future as well.  His mercies are fresh every morning. 
    
So honor the past but don't try to live there.  Be willing to "sing to Him a new song, play skillfully and shout for joy."  But remember, "In doctrine unity, in opinion liberty, and in all things love."
    
Here's another question: Why are women not allowed to be leaders in the church?  One questioner added, "I really don't have a problem with it but would like to know the reason so I can tell my liberal friends and family that do have a problem with it!"  
    
(Turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 3.)  In the first place women are allowed to be leaders in the church.  Think of the official areas where women help lead here.  Lynn Reece heads up our Women's Ministry and oversees thousands of women in Bible study.  Ninie Hammon has been the editor of The Southeast Outlook for the past ten years.  Cindee Coffee and Debbie Ward are important members of the Staff Leadership Team and oversee dozens of employees on staff.  Tina Bruner heads up our Mission's Ministry which oversees a four million dollar budget.
    
Without the women leading in key positions this church would be in deep trouble.  But there are a few positions in the church where only men serve.  The role of elder is filled by men only because it is our understanding of Scripture that it's to be a male role.  First Timothy 3:2-4 reads, "Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.  He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect."
    
The elder (and later similar language is given for the deacon) is described as a husband, a father, and a leader of the family.  Since 1 Timothy 5:17 describes the preacher as a paid elder, we choose not to have a woman preach in the assembly.  We often hear from women in testimonies or interviews such as we heard from Joni Eareckson Tada, Liz Curtis Higgs, Kaylene Idleman, Heather Mercer, and Dana Curry.  But they don't preach per se.
    
If this were my church, I'd have female elders and deacons.  We'd have feminine input on the board and I'd never have to answer the question, "Why don't we have women elders?"  But it's not my church.  It's God's church.  He sets forth the blueprint for it in the Bible.  Whether or not we understand it, we're committed as a church to using the Bible as our guideline.  While cultural ideas fluctuate, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
    
Having said that I must add there are some roles where only men serve here at Southeast that are traditions and not commandments.  Traditions are up for review and change in the future.  Biblical commands are not be up for debate or alteration.
    
For example, the Master's Men is an all male group.  If a woman applies, I doubt the female director will admit her.  But that may change someday.
    
Another area of service that's currently filled by only men is ushering.  There's nothing in the Bible that says that ushers are to be men, but we've traditionally had all men serving communion and showing people to their seats.  There are many Bible believing churches where that is not the case but we've held on to that tradition here.
   
When we were preparing to move into this building we knew the number of ushers would have to more than double so I proposed to the elders that we have couples serve communion.  The elders debated that and recognized that it was a matter of opinion, not doctrine.  But they said, "This practice seems to have served us well.  Let's recruit harder and continue it." 
   
Since we made that decision we have received the most positive comments from women.  They say two things.   We've got more on our plates than we can handle.  Let the men do it-that's something they can do!  And secondly, they say if women serve, it may be distracting.  We'll be watching what they wear and how they act.  (That doesn't make much sense to me but that's what my wife said!)    
    
One other tradition we have held on to that I suspect will be up for review is that only men baptize in our services.  I like the fact that fathers baptize children; friends baptize friends.  But we've not had a woman baptize someone publicly.  It's may have occurred at the Vine, but our elders don't attend the Vine so don't tell them!
    
Since there's nothing in the Bible about who is to baptize we need to respect the leaders and be flexible.  It's also a good place to obey Hebrews 13:17: "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.  They keep watch over you as men who must give an account."  This is another a good place to practice the slogan: In doctrine unity, in opinion liberty, and in all things love.
    
Another question that was asked in different forms was, "What is Southeast's belief about the gift of speaking in tongues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit?  The first mention of speaking in tongues is in Acts 2.  The Bible says the disciples were all baptized in the Holy Spirit and they all began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.  In Acts 2 the tongues were foreign languages which visitors to Jerusalem understood.  It was a miracle that confirmed the Apostles' message was from God.  I don't know of anyone who today claims that God has supernaturally blessed with the gift of a foreign language. 
    
At the Billy Graham Crusade in New York city there were 21 different interpreters.  On the Day of Pentecost they didn't need any interpreters because they were given a miraculous gift of communicating in other languages.
    
God doesn't seem to be giving that kind of tongue speaking gift today.  When we become Christians God promises us the gift or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit anoints our gifts.  He empowers us to overcome temptation, understand the Bible, witness courageously, pray properly, suffer patiently, and to develop the fruit of the Spirit in daily living.
    
Turn to 1 Corinthians 13 for a minute.  Some suggest that there is another kind of tongue hinted at in 1 Corinthians which is an unintelligible prayer language - a heavenly language - the tongues of angels.  Some claim to have experienced this prayer language today and say this ecstatic experience really edifies them.
  
Well, 1 Corinthians 12-14 points out that the Holy Spirit gives different gifts and not all speak in tongues.  (I have a gift to teach but I've not been given the gift of tongues.)  This passage discourages speaking in tongues in public worship.  It says it's better to speak five words that are understood than ten thousand in a language no one comprehends.
     
It gives three guidelines for speaking in tongues in the assembly.  There is to be no division-it is to edify the church not to tear it down.  There is to be nothing unintelligible-if no one interprets what is said, keep silent.  There is to be no disorder-worship should be orderly not chaotic.
     
This is why we don't practice it in worship.  We tell people if you want to do it in your private devotional life that's up to you, but don't interrupt worship with it and don't be evangelistic with it, leaving the impression that you're somehow superior because you speak in tongues.  It has the potential for division and unintelligible tongues in the service scares away unbelievers. 
     
Paul closes chapter 12 by saying, "…eagerly desire the greater gifts…now I'm going to show you a more excellent way."  Chapter 13 is the love chapter of the Bible that begins, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal."
     
The most important gift the Holy Spirit gives to us is not speaking in tongues but the ability to love to love the unlovely.  Desire that gift.  Don't be chasing after the supernatural, gifts just because they are more spectacular or dramatic.
     
Look at verse eight of chapter 13,  "Love never fails.  But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away."
    
Since the Bible teaches there will be a time when speaking in tongues will cease, since we don't see evidence of anyone miraculously speaking a foreign language, since speaking in tongues is discouraged in public worship, and, since it is the least of the gifts, we don't emphasize it.
    
But since it's not clearly defined in Scripture we don't make it a test of fellowship but we try to practice the slogan: "In doctrine unity, in opinion liberty, and in all things love."
   
The most frequently asked question in one form or another concerned our stance on homosexuality.  "Why does Southeast seem to raise more morality questions regarding homosexuality than heterosexual relationships?"  "Why isn't divorce as important of a topic as homosexuality within the church?"  "Can homosexuals be saved and still practice their lifestyle?"

(Turn in your Bibles to I Corinthians 6 and hold it for a moment.)  If we have said more about homosexuality than other sins, it's because that is Satan's most recent point of attack.  Imagine a football coach who can tell that the opposing team's next play is a run around right end.  He starts yelling from the sidelines, "Watch the end around."  Someone might ask, "Why are you putting so much emphasis on defending the end run?"  He knows that's where the opponent is attacking.
    
There is a very obvious agenda in the secular world to condition us to accept homosexuality as normal behavior.  Some see it as a civil rights issue.  People are born gay so they ought not to be asked to repent, but we ought to love them as they are and not oppose their life style.  That is the constant theme of television programs and talk shows.  It's in our face all the time.
    
There's not a big push to legalize polygamy or prostitution or bestiality or communal living.  But there is currently an agenda to numb our conscience about homosexuality.  Martin Luther said, "If I be valiant all along the battle line, except at the point where Satan presses his attack, I am not valiant for Christ." 
    
Frankly we are losing this battle.  In one hour a week, the church can't compete with the constant well-packaged propaganda that comes out of the secular world.  Statistics show that young people are increasingly regarding homosexuality as acceptable and anyone who suggests otherwise is considered judgmental and evil.  But the Bible says, "Woe to those who call good evil and evil good, who put darkness for light and light for darkness."
   
In my opinion it will be just a matter of time until gay marriage is legalized and any opposition will be illegal-labeled as hate speech.  But remember, the vast majority approved the immorality in Noah's day, in Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the Roman Empire.  But God's judgments aren't based on majority opinion but on His never-changing Word.
    
The church has a responsibility to stand for truth, even if it is unpopular to do so.  That slogan does say, "In doctrine unity"-in other words where the Bible speaks clearly we speak without apology.
    
First Corinthians 6:9-10 reads, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."
    
That is an ominous, very clear warning to us all.  The good news is that it concludes with hope.  The next verse reads, "And that is what some of you were.  But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."
   
The message we want to communicate as lovingly as possible is that there is no sin of the body, spirit, or tongue that can't be forgiven and cleansed by Jesus Christ.  But a condition for cleansing is that we repent and turn from the sin.  We are to become new creatures in Christ.
    
Those old desires may still appeal, we may still stumble and fall on occasion, but the intended direction of our lives has changed.  We don't justify the behavior any more.  We deal with it the same way we deal with other sexual temptations.  First Peter 2:11 says we are "to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul."
    
A few weeks ago I spoke at a great conference in Honolulu.  (You have to go where Jesus leads!)  I want to show you a clip from another speaker on the program, a former homosexual named Sy Rogers.  Before I show the clip I want to tell you about him.
    
His mother was killed when he was young.  His dad neglected him and a relative sexually abused him.  He got so deep into the homosexual lifestyle, that he was militant in his attitude.  He was so uncomfortable with his feelings that he lived for two years as a woman.  He applied for a sex change operation but after a two-year wait, John Hopkins University informed him they weren't doing any more. 
    
About twenty years ago the Lord got hold of Sy Roger's life and he turned to Christ for forgiveness and cleansing.  He resisted the homosexual temptations and eventually found himself attracted to a woman and he married her.  That doesn't always happen but it did in Sy Rogers' case.  (He then introduced his wife and teenage daughter who had accompanied him to the conference.)
    
This guy was Biblical and engaging.  He convicted me again of some of my harsh attitudes.  When he first started talking I was a little skeptical because he sounded and acted very effeminate.  He began by saying, "I know I sound somewhat effeminate but if you grow up in Hungary, you're going to have a Hungarian accent!"  He showed a picture of himself dressed as a woman and said, "Ladies, not many men here can say, 'I walked a mile in your shoes.'  But I did. And it wasn't very comfortable."       Then he talked about the issue of whether homosexuality is genetic or a choice.  Listen to what he said:

"Christians tried to reach out to me, but you know what?  They kept trying to win an argument with me about the way I lived my life.  And so they would say things to me like, 'Sy, your way is not the way-it is Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.'  'Oh, I'm all better now, thanks-I didn't know!'  I'm not trying to mock that idea too much but the point is my sex life is not what was getting me into trouble with God. 

Let me make a theological statement that might shock you for a moment but you need to think it though and, if you do, you'll realize it's biblical.  People don't go to hell for being gay.  Why do people go to hell?  They go to hell because there're not reconciled to God thru Christ.  Everything else is a symptom of whether one is surrendered to God or not.  People do not go to heaven because they are heterosexual.  Heterosexuals go to hell.  The only people that go to heaven are redeemed people.  And my need was not just for a different sexuality, but my foundational need was for a Savior.  But Christians couldn't get beyond my sex life-they only saw me one dimensionally and kept trying to win a moral argument instead of winning a neighbor. 

Timothy was cautioned two thousand years ago: don't argue with people who were in deception.  Your clever words won't win them.  Instead how you treat them will impact them - not with some wisdom in your back pocket - when there is an opening…and then you pray for them.  Pray that the Lord will convict them and that they will wake up from the comma of deception escaping the trap of the devil who has taken them captive to do his will.  People will pray, 'God get them; God stop them.'  They don't pray, 'God save them!'  And when people say, 'Well I can't help it, Sy, I was born gay.'  And I say 'It doesn't matter-you've got to be born again.' 

The most current research does not say people are born gay but it's still a dynamic field of study.  And one day, if they discover some people have a pre-disposition that's genetic or in some other way inherent within them, no big deal!  Has God already pre-disposed this?  Of course!  As a theologian once said, 'Just because it occurs naturally in nature doesn't make it normal and healthy or God ordained because Mother Nature is not your mother, she is your fallen sister.'  And you have many pre-dispositions toward diabetes, or depression, or obesity.  Just because nature gives it to you doesn't make it healthy.  You've got to think it through and remember, if you have a weakness, that doesn't disqualify you from God's love.  But don't let it become a barrier between you and God.  Let it push you toward God.  Doesn't matter what you're born thank God you can be "born again." 

Everybody's been filled with these inherent corruptions.  God doesn't blame us for it; He just doesn't want the corruptions to become our master.  So when they say, 'Do you think I'm going to hell for being gay?'  I say, 'You know what?  You don't have to, and in the Bible it talks about gay people being redeemed in I Corinthians 6:9-11.'  That's more good news than many evangelicals have ever shared with a gay person - that God redeems the sexual sinner including the gay person - evidence right there in the New Testament.  And then when they say, 'What do you think God thinks?'  'You know, my opinion doesn't really matter but there is an opinion that absolutely does.  Why don't you turn to scripture and pray and talk to God.  Because if you really care about God's opinion then don't surround yourself with others who will tell you what you want to hear.  Find out God's opinion and He will lead you in all truth.  Do you believe God's big enough to do that?  I do!'"
   
Second Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"
    
The time is coming and has actually already arrived that a church that takes a biblical stand will have to pay a price.  And it has already cost us at Southeast.  After the "One Man One Woman" campaign last fall there was an angry reaction in the homosexual community and local media.
    
Some people I really care about bailed out of the church because they agree more with culture than Scripture, it just hit too close to home, or they don't have a heart for a spiritual battle.  I'm thankful and proud of those who have stayed it through.
    
In John 6 a number of Jesus' disciples left because His teaching was too strict.  He asked the 12, "Will you also go away?"  Peter said, "Lord to whom shall we go?  You alone have the words of eternal life."
    
There are a number of churches that are saying what itching ears want to hear and some who are cautiously silent on this issue.  But it is the commitment of the leaders of this church that we will do our best to speak the truth in love because Jesus alone has the words of life.
    
One other question I want to deal with I, "Does Southeast consider baptism essential for salvation?"  Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast."
    
Becoming a Christian is putting your faith in Jesus Christ and not your good works to save you.  The Bible makes it clear that only Christ died for our sins.  Only Christ can save us because our good works are as filthy rags to God.
    
But the question becomes how do you put your trust in Christ.  What response does He require of us? 
     
(I want you to turn to Mark 16.)  Have you ever noticed that when Jesus healed people He often required a demonstration of faith?  To ten lepers he said, "Go show yourself to the priest."  To a man with a withered hand, "Stretch forth that hand."  To a blind man, "Go wash in the pool of Siloam".  When they obeyed and were healed Jesus would say, "Your faith has healed you." 
    
We are healed of sin by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. But He requires an expression of faith to receive the miracle of salvation.  In Mark 16:15-16 He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.  Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."
   
In each recorded instance of conversion that's how people responded.  In Acts 2, Peter commanded those who believed to, "repent and be baptized" and 3000 who heard the message were baptized.  In Acts 8 the Ethiopian Eunuch stopped his chariot in the middle of the wilderness and was baptized.  In Acts 10 Cornelius and his household were baptized.  In Acts 16 the Philippian jailer was baptized after midnight.
    
Just getting wet doesn't save you, but putting your trust in Christ does.  Baptism is your outer expression that you are doing that.  If someone refuses to be baptized, that demonstrates that they haven't really made Christ Lord of their life.  Jesus said, "If you love me keep commandments."
    
Can someone be saved if they can't be baptized or they don't know about baptism or they get killed on the way to the baptistery?  Or what about the thief on the cross-he wasn't baptized and yet he was saved? 
    
One commentator said, "There is one death bed conversion in the pages of Scripture so that none may despair.  There is only one so that none may presume."  People in the Old Testament era, such as the dying thief, were saved prior to baptism.  Little children or people with learning disabilities who can't understand are going to be saved without baptism.
     
We trust that God is a perfect and just judge.  He will judge each person according to knowledge and opportunity.  But the issue is not what God would do with someone else, but what you have done with Christ yourself? You have heard the truth of Scripture that all have sinned and the wages of sin is death.  You have heard the hope of the gospel-that Christ died for our sins on the cross. You have heard the command of Christ, "He who believes and is baptized shall be saved."
    
Are you willing to respond by faith and demonstrate that by being baptized today?  If so He has promised, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be red as crimson they shall be as wool."
    
I don't have all the answers to every question but Christ does.  The most important question for you today is one that Ananias asked Saul of Tarsus.
"And now what are you waiting for?  Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name'" (Acts 22:16).