Biblical Fellowship: Inclusive or Exclusive?

Transcript

Open or closed fellowship? Which one is biblical? I kind of came up with the idea of doing this class after seeing some social media posts over the years on Christadelphian sites, kind of questioning our standard practice. Things said like, you know, I don't need the BASF. I don't need a statement of faith. I have my Bible. It's my statement of faith. All right, fair enough. You know, I will fellowship with anyone who wants to follow Christ, and it was received, you know, positively. I recognize all Christian baptisms. You know, we're not alone in having the truth, so we need to be more tolerant of other Christian faiths. There was one gentleman on there that was a Christadelphian and started to go to some sort of Protestant one, and he said, it's not a big deal. I don't believe in the Trinity, but the place that I go to worship does, and it's not a big deal. No one cares. So that's kind of why I decided to do a class on that, and so what we'll talk about tonight is quickly, we'll just talk inclusive or exclusive. What is God, right? Sometimes you always, you know, God's inclusive, right? Love is love, God is love, or exclusive, right? Christianity, what do you mean it's the only way? It's too exclusive. So we'll take a quick look at that. We'll look at the meaning of fellowship, and we'll take a look at what's behind, what's the influences behind the rise of the practice of open fellowship compared to the traditional view of the closed fellowship practice, and then, you know, hey, maybe should we be less restrictive in who we share the memorial with so that we can gain members? So let's jump right into it. You know, is God inclusive? You know, well, he wishes that none should perish, but all would come to repentance in the promises given to Abraham, right? In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed, right? Jesus to his disciples, go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, right? Peter says, of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. And of course, this is in Revelation, this is kind of the culmination of this, of what was promised that all families will be blessed. It says, after this I looked and therefore before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, language, standing before the throne and in front of the lamb. So these are just a few passages and I think we would certainly say, yeah, God is inclusive, right? You know, and so maybe we could say the general call of the gospel is inclusive. However, salvation is exclusive. It's only for those that respond and respond the way that God has ordained, right? Jesus says, he that believeth in his baptize shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. So I think we can say that there's a combination of both. So what's the definition of fellowship? So it can mean partner, partnership, companion, communion, we commune together, partakers. It's to share in common. So when you have fellowship with someone, we share something in common, right? We walk with God. Abraham walked with God because they were in agreement together, right? We share fellowship with God when we walk with him. So what is an open fellowship? Well, the definition of open fellowship, it's very inclusive, right? All are welcome to participate in communion regardless of membership or beliefs. Now, that's, you know, what this used to mean, it used to imply that the individual was baptized and of course, was a believer of the Trinity. And then the denomination didn't matter. You were invited to take communion. Now, baptism is not always essential to partake of the memorial. It's kind of, you know, the memorial is so special that we let them partake and then maybe later that they will become baptized. It's a come as you are mentality. Not a lot of talk about repentance, right? Come as you are. It promotes unity over faith. Well, with closed fellowship, this is the traditional view. So the traditional practice, this is what we practice, of course, it's exclusive. Participation in the breaking of bread is limited to members. Membership is based on shared beliefs. Baptism is required. There is unity in faith. So that's kind of the definition. So a little bit more on the open fellowship. The proponents of open fellowship will say things like, you know, we're all God's children, so we can all come to the table. It's the Lord's table, right? It's not our table. Some truth to that. Jesus ate with sinners. What are their reasoning? There's not a lot of Bible verse for this or for that that I could find any way. It was more of a philosophical type of reasoning. You know, baptism isn't important because Jesus' apostles weren't baptized. They'll say things like that. There's a diversity in understanding, meaning understanding the scriptures. Your opinions, your interpretations are welcome. They're just as valid as anyone else's. We like to have a broad diversity in our understanding of the scriptures. So then, you know, some of the slogans that you see up on the top, it's also called open fellowship, sometimes called open table. They promote inclusion, hospitality, and unconditional welcoming, which, you know, hey, that seems to be fine on the surface. We'd like to think, hey, you know, we're pretty, you know, we're welcoming, right? I mean, if someone came in and they came, they could come directly from prison and would say, hey, you want to change your life? You want to come on in, right? We'd like to think we're hospitable. We'd like to include everyone. However, if you're just going to bring in false teachings and an alternative way of life that opposes God's way, then we're not going to be so welcoming. But this is what is promoted. So you can see the picture of a gentleman there, and I don't know, he's at maybe some sort of a conference or something promoting his belief. You can kind of see on the big sign behind him, that open table, come as you are. For all those who are looking for an inclusive church. You know, it's big for the gay community. And he's got all these little pamphlets in there that he probably hands out. And, you know, I don't know if you can read that placard that he's got in front of them there. That's standing up. It's selling tickets to a play. The title of the play reads, The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven. So in this play, Jesus is portrayed as a transgender. So I saw this and I, you know, it conjured up the image of Jesus walking into the temple with the money changes and turning over the tables. And I had that like, oh, man, I would like to turn that table over. We'll take, you know, I think, you know, to some extent, that's what we're going to be doing in the Kingdom Age. We'll take a little bit of look at that. But so this is kind of the picture of this open fellowship, you know, all are welcome, right? There's, you know, he's not here declaring God's righteousness, right? You can see what he's declaring. He's declaring a lifestyle is okay. He's not declaring God's righteousness. So anyway. So what are some of the influences that are pushing this move towards the practice of open fellowship? Well, some of it is from the, you know, from post-modernism, you know, the effects of that that has left on society, the idea of that, you know, all things are relative. It's based on the individual culture experience. There are no absolute truths, not in science or history. That's why we see a lot of the cancel culture, right? They're trying to rewrite history, right? And certainly religion would, right? Certainly we don't go to the Bible. What is true to you may not be true to me. You hear things like, you know, live your truth, you do you. All religions are equally valid and to say otherwise is arrogant and intolerant. So of course what Jesus said here would be that would be arrogant to them and intolerant. I am way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the father but by me. We've got the woke theology, you know, I don't know when the whole woke movement started, but you know, it seems to be the last 15 odd years or so it's been real focus. And the focus here is on inclusivity, diversity, equality, human rights, intolerance, the very active in protest seek to influence policy change. God is viewed as being genocidal, an oppressor of women, approved of slavery and of course condemns homosexuality. They deny clear Bible teaching, prioritizing culture over scripture. We'll achieve heaven on earth but without Christ it'll be through environmental and social activism. We also have the old ecumenical movement sometimes referred to now as the interfaith movement. I think it was first, you know, just get all the Christian faiths together and now it's like just get all the faiths together. All right, very inclusive, stresses common ground and ignores doctrinal differences. All religious worldviews are equally valid, focuses on resolving social issues. So they're very, you know, they take all the faiths very inclusive, right? You can get this extreme inclusiveness like, who is that famous, you know, pastor guy there that said that you don't even have to believe in Jesus to be saved. You can be an atheist and you'll still be saved, right? This extreme inclusiveness. And now you've got something, you know, there's progressive Christianity movements. I think started like in the 90s and gained a bit more popularity in the early 2000s but they also put aside the importance of doctrine because Jesus didn't come to teach doctrine but just to show us how to treat one another. Strong emphasis also on social justice and on environmental stewardship of the earth. They're always progressing, right? Christianity, they say, should always be moving forward, really keeping up with the times. And again, there's no absolute truth. They don't go to the Bible. They don't believe that is the word of God. So these are the type of influences that are out there, right? And doctrine has become a foreign language within the churches today. So, you know, these all kind of bleed in together and really could go under the title of humanism or what Jesus referred to as the spirits of madness, which he says will be prevalent in the world just before he comes. So we can see that this can be a danger to our community. Like I said, I've seen a few posts and it doesn't get pushed away. It gets supported, these type of ideas. So we're going to go to scriptures, of course. And what did the scripture say? Does it promote tolerance? What does it say about unity? What does the Bible say about doctrine? You know, what kind of patterns are revealed in the scriptures for us? Is it okay for us to go to another Christian denomination and break bread or invite them to ours? Is this stuff okay? So I think we'll be able to answer that by the time we're done. I know you already know what the answer is. So the Passover, right? And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, this is the ordinance of the Passover, but no foreigner shall eat of it. But every man's servant who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat of it. A sojourner and a high and servant shall eat of it. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover, the Lord let all his males be circumcised and then let him come near and keep it. And he shall be native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. So this wasn't a, you know, come all, everyone can partake of the Passover. There were restrictions. It was only for those who were circumcised. And the circumcision is, of course, the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, right? This is my covenant which shall keep every male child and when you shall be circumcised. And the uncircumcised male and the soul that shall be cut off from his people, he hath broken my covenant, right? So the Passover meal was only for those that were in covenant relationship. Now this next example, I think I've got too many slides, so I'm just going to kind of give a little quick little summary of what's going on here, right? This is revival under the reign of Hezekiah, right? Ahaz, his father, was not a good king, right? He had closed down the temple. It was a great time of spiritual darkness. Idolatry ran wild. And Hezekiah comes and he says, okay, that, you know, enough of this. We've got to reopen that temple. So he orders the Levitical priests reopen it, cleanse it, fix it all up, and let's get this thing open again. He then sends out a letter to all of Israel and Judea and says, hey, listen, everyone, we're going to reinstitute the Passover, right? We haven't done it in a long time. This is a call to repentance. Come, return to God. That's the call. It's a call of repentance, returning to God. It's not a come as you are, bring your idols. It doesn't matter. It's a call to return to God. And some of them just, you know, ignore him. But the humble accept the invitation to return. And they have this great celebration. There's a lot of excitement. And then in verse 31, it says, now, when all this was finished, all Israel who were present went out to the cities of Judah and broke the sacred pillars and pieces, cut down the wooden images, threw down the high places in the altars until they had utterly destroyed them all. They weren't going to allow false worship to reside right next to the correct worship of God, right? And that's what it's, you know, we see this a few times in scriptures, I think of Gideon, right? And there's several other times where they rip down the high place. This might be the first job we have in the kingdom age, will be the tip over those tables to tear down the places of false worship, because Jesus certainly isn't going to allow this to happen in the kingdom age. So that's like a little, you know, the patterns that we see in scripture. What about Jesus with doctrine, right? He didn't come to teach doctrine. Well, he denounces doctrine. He's got a problem with false doctrine. This is in the letters to the Ecclesias in Revelation, right? But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, also that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which is a thing I hate, right? These were false doctrines. Jesus didn't like the false doctrines. This is to the you because you tolerate that woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach false doctrine and to seduce my servants to commit spiritual fornication and to eat things sacrificed to idols, right? Jesus is not tolerant of your beliefs, right? Certainly not of these false doctrines. There's not, you know, tolerance isn't being taught here. Jesus did care about doctrine, and he went against, you know, sometimes we hear people say, you know, we should probably remove those doctrines to be rejected, because, you know, it might be offensive to some people, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Now, if you really feel strongly about something, we're supposed to contend for the faith. So when false beliefs come in, we should be able to say, no, that's not right. And that's what Jesus is doing here. These things I do not like, do not tolerate them. In the practice of open fellowship, the importance of doctrine is strongly diluted. So in First Corinthians, it says, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion, right? The fellowship of the blood of Christ, the bread which we break, is it not the communion, the fellowship of the body of Christ? For we though many are one bread, one body, we all partake, we share in fellowship of that one bread, right? The sacrifice of Christ, right, brings us together. We understand the sacrifice of Christ, and that's what we share. We share that together in fellowship. And there's that oneness, that unity, right? He goes on and says, you cannot drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons, too. You cannot have part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons, right? Israel would do that from time to time, right? They'd go worship Beth and then go worship Yahweh, right? Unacceptable. You can't do both. Therefore, let us keep the feast, the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, right? That's our commandments in Christ. And then we've got the truth, the word of God, right? That's our statement of faith. They go hand in hand. How could we possibly partake of the bread and the wine with someone who doesn't understand the sacrifice of Christ? You know, to share the memorial with other denominations, we would have to compromise the truth for the sake of unity, right? And sometimes you can understand it because we live in a world where, you know, I don't know about you, but I'm running into people that, you know, they won't say they're atheists, but they just, they don't care, right? Agnostic, right? Like, I don't, you know, I've been working on this class for a while. I used to talk to a dozen people, hey, what are you doing? I'm working on a Bible class. Not one of them asked me, oh, what's it about? They don't care, right? So, and so sometimes you come along with someone and they say, oh yeah, you know, I believe in God. I go to church. I read my Bible. We get a little excited, right? And maybe we just want to kind of push those. We know there are differences there. Maybe we just kind of want to slide them to the side. But by doing that, we will have to compromise the truth. And if we do that at the Lord's table, then it's not the Lord's table anymore. Then it's man's table because now we're following the traditions of man, man-made gods. It's a privilege for us to partake of the memorial, brothers and sisters, right? We have chosen to make a commitment, right? It's a privilege. It's not just to, hey, anyone who wants to do this. No, it's a privilege to partake of that. We've made a commitment. And when Jesus wanted to sit down, yeah, Jesus ate with sinners, but that's not, this is no ordinary thing. It's a privilege when he was going to take the Passover. He wanted it with the apostles. He says, with desire, I've decided to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Why didn't he just choose 12 rando people as he walked in? He wanted them there because they knew who he was. They knew why he came, you know, mostly, and the rest was revealed later, but they knew who this man was. Who do you say I am? Simon Peter answered. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. That's exactly what we would say, right? And then Jesus goes on to say, hey, Simon Peter, guess what? You're blessed of my Father because he revealed that to you. And that's what we would say. We wouldn't say you're God the Son. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he and God, this fellowship there by that belief. Biblical separation, right? It says separation. It's a command. Just like, you know, taking of the bread and wine. It's not a suggestion. It's a command. Do this in remembrance of me. And it goes on and says, you know, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. What fellowship? What do you have in common? What does righteousness and unrighteousness have in common? Nothing, right? These are opposites that he's using. What communion? Light with darkness. These are opposites, right? And he goes on, he says in verse 17, wherefore come out from among them, from the unbelievers, and be ye separate, and I will receive you, and be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters. That's if we separate, separate from unbelief, from false beliefs, separate from walking in darkness. Now we don't separate into isolation. We separate unto the gospel of Christ and into the body of Christ. So we're not like, you know, going to isolate from everybody. That's, you know, we're separating unto the body of Christ. Now we often, you know, quote this with, you know, marriage, of course, and, you know, rightfully so, but it certainly applied to many other avenues in life, you know, maybe business relationships. Certainly, I think, at the table, at the Lord's table, why would we, what fellowship do we have with those that believe in a different God than we do, have a different hope than we do? Friendships, right? I would imagine we all have, I know I do have friends that are unbelievers, and there have been times where I've had to, you know, withdraw from that friendship, like this guy's not helping me in my walk. He's hindering me. You know, I gotta, you know, I gotta cut him loose. Sometimes we've gotta make those decisions as well. The basis of fellowship. It says in Rome, God of patience and consolation grant you to be like -minded, one toward another according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind, one mouth, glorify God, even the Father, our Lord, Jesus Christ, wherefore receive one another. We receive each other based on that one mind of understanding of the gospel that Jesus taught. It says in Philippians, I thank my God for your fellowship in the gospel. What do we share in common? That gospel, that unique gospel, right? That's what we share together. Only let your conduct be as it become at the gospel of Christ. It's your way of life, right? We know that this isn't just a Sunday thing for us. This is a life changer. This is, we change our lives. This is a way of life for us. We try to live that gospel message. We try to follow the example of Christ. We're trying to develop the characteristics of God and let that permeate in our lives, right? We should be with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. That's the thing that we, that precious thing that we share together. And unity is, you know, we saw those, you know, that open fellowship really promotes unity, right? We agree with unity, but not over faith, right? We have unity, this oneness that is in Christ. Of course, Ephesians, we know the one body, the one spirit, the one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father over us all, right? That oneness that is in Christ. So in Galatians, we read, for you are all the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Okay, so who are the children of God? Those that have faith in Christ Jesus. We are united together with Christ in baptism, right? We have put on Christ. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now you, now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God's promise to Abraham now belongs to you, right? Well, just like in the Passover, it was only for those who were in a covenant relationship. Well, through our baptisms into Christ, we are in a covenant relationship, and now we're heirs. We're part of that, those promises made to Abraham. And that's who should be breaking bread with us. The saints and faithful, brethren in Christ, since we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which you have had to all saints for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you have heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel. So what makes us, brethren in Christ, that we agree of the truth of the gospel? And if we continue in the faith, grounded and settled, right? We are unmoved. Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. You know, remember Paul to the Galatians? I'm surprised at how quickly you've moved on from the gospel we taught you into another gospel, which there isn't one, right? But if we stay grounded and settled in this gospel, then the reconciling work of Christ will be able to present you holy, unblameable, unreproved in his sight. So in Ephesians, it says that Christ, you know, speaking of the Ecclesiastes, they're trying to build up, you know, the faith, the Ecclesiastes. It says Christ gave some apostles and teachers, you know, to the Ecclesiastes to do God's work. For what purpose? The equipping of the saints for work of the service of the building up of the body until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man. So we, so, you know, they were going to be there to teach and to guide until there was a maturity within the Ecclesia and understanding a united faith so that you'll be no more children. You're going to have a mature belief so that when someone comes and teaches something else, you're not going to be tossed to and fro, carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of man and cunning craftiness, whereby they lay in wait to deceive you, right? So these guys, you know, these teachers, the apostles were there, you know, anytime, you know, Paul had to deal with problems, he was always very patient with those who were deceived, but he was quick to call out the false doctrines. There's no fellowship without common faith. Doctrine was a prerequisite to fellowship at Pentecost. Then those who gladly received his word were baptized and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. And they continue steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine, not any doctrine, the apostle's doctrine. What did the apostles teach? Did they teach about a triune God? They did not. And fellowship, see the connection, doctrine, fellowship and breaking of bread and in prayers. This is an example of closed fellowship. Those that day who heard and were not baptized did not go and break bread. It says, and they all believed and all that believed were together, had all things common, and they sold their possessions and goods and part of them to all men as every man had need. They didn't just share in their spiritual blessings, but also in their material blessings with one another. And they continuing daily with one accord in unity in the temple, harmony. They had a shared purpose. We've got a really unique community, of course. We might have someone come over from the UK and they'll contact someone and say, can I have a place to stay? And you welcome them into your house and you don't know who they are and they don't know who you are. But yet we've got this shared purpose. We share the same hope. I know what that man's priorities are. He knows what my priorities are. He's trying to walk the walk and so am I. We've got this same purpose. I wouldn't welcome in anyone, but oh, it's a brother in Christ. Oh, okay. That's unique. And the breaking of bread from house to house, did they eat their food with gladness and singleness of heart, right? And we know for, you know, as the body is one and many members, right? We've got all that, right? For the body is not one member, but it's many. And the body moves together, doesn't it, right? United as one in the faith to form the body of Christ. We also have fellowship. It's not just with one another, but it's with the father and with the son. And John writes, that which was from the beginning, which we heard, which we have seen with our eyes, you know, you try, you know, when you read this, try to pretend that you're John, that you were part of that inner circle, that you knew Jesus, right? And now you're trying to explain to someone who's never met him, but heard of him. You want to, you're excited. You want to get that truth out, right? So you try to read it with the excitement that John would read hey, we've looked upon him with our hands. We've touched this man, right? For the life was manifested. We've seen it. We're witnesses. And we want to show unto you that eternal life, that which we've seen and heard. We declare it unto you that you may also have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus, right? The understanding, the truth, as revealed in the life of Jesus, that's the fellowship that we share together, right? That's what we hold in common, right? And we are partners in our walk towards the kingdom outlay. Jesus says, you know, sanctify them through thy truth. I word is the that they may be one as thou father art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, right? This sharing, this oneness, this unity, this one purpose, one faith and one walk. And then we've, you know, we've got the faith and then you've got the walk, right? We've got to, we know the truth and we've got to live it, right? God is light. We walk in the light. He is in the light. And if we walk in the light, then we have fellowship with him, right? The light is the dark and we believe that God knows better than we do. God is right, righteous. We are not. His ways are better than my ways. You know, him declaring death for sin, he is right. This is what we deserve because we're sinners, right? We have no problem in our community. We know the nature of man. We know we have sins. And he says, if you walk in the light as he is in the light, then you have fellowship one with another in the blood of Jesus Christ. His son cleanses us from all sins, right? If we recognize this, we'll be, he's righteous to forgive us of our sins. However, if we decide we think we know a better way, we might declare, I believe in God, but I don't believe in the word. I think there's a better way to do it. And then I leave the light and I walk in darkness. I go my own way, like natural man always does, then there is no fellowship with God. We walk the walk, faith and walk. So I thought I had way too many slides. So I think I might have sped through that a little too quickly. I think I've only got one more slide. We've come to the end. Is faith important? Is doctrine important? Is tolerance promoted in the scripture? I don't think so. And again, those spirits of madness, they're going to be prevalent in the world. They're going to affect our community. And we want to keep an eye out for that. So what do we think about breaking bread with other Christian faiths? Do you think we put too much emphasis on doctrine? You think, yeah, they're doctrine. You know what? It's close enough, maybe. Well, this last slide is a quote from Brother Harry Tennant. And I think Harry will sum up our position pretty well. He says, We are not one church among many was separate from them. We have no part or lot with them. There are next to no similarities over the things that matter. How God judges them is not our concern. They do not believe in the same God as us, the same Jesus Christ, the nature of man, salvation, baptism, atonement, or in the same kingdom of God. They do not share the same beliefs regarding warfare, politics, voting, or belief in the devil. In fact, they don't believe in the same Bible. So I think that might sum up the position that we should take as to whether we should be participating in an open fellowship or close fellowship, which is, of course, what we do practice. So that's what I have for this evening.