I'm David Bercot. Tonight we're going to be talking about on being a radical Christian. Back in 1981, I was the corporate attorney or general counsel for a company called Henderson Clay Products. This was a brick company originally, but it had gotten into the oil business and had primarily become an oil company at that point. Well, one day we had a hearing with the Texas Railroad Commission in Austin, the Capitol.
Now, this probably sounds strange to a non-Texan, but in Texas, the state agency that regulates oil and gas production is the Railroad Commission. Anyway, we were having a hearing with the Railroad Commission about changing the field rules, how many wells you were allowed to drill for each particular gas field. Now, our company had its own helicopter, so we decided we would just fly down to Austin in it. I went along with some of the officers of the corporation.
On the way down, we stopped and picked up a petroleum engineer and a geologist from another oil company, Thena. We're going to be at the same hearing. Well, the hearing went fine. On the way back, I was sitting up in the front with the pilot and I was watching him fly the helicopter. And boy, he did look ever easy. He was just nonchalant talking and it didn't look like he was doing much of anything. So I thought, you know, I bet I could fly this thing myself.
So I asked the pilot if I could maybe have my hand at the controls for a while. He said," Okay." And he showed me what to do. He pointed to the instrument dial and on there there was what appeared like a little bomb. And all I had to do was keep that ball in the center of the dime. But when you move the control stick, it made the ball move. So I say, all I had to do was just keep that ball right in the center. And watching him do it, it certainly looked easy enough.
However, as soon as I took over the controls, I quickly found out that keeping the ball in the center of that dial was anything but easy, at least for a novice. And the controls were so unbelievably sensitive that just a little move would make the helicopter suddenly lurch in one direction, and then I would try to bring it back to get the ball back in the center, and then we would lurch back the other direction.
So we went zigzagging across the Texas sky as I tried desperately to keep that little belong in the center of the dial, which at first said seemed to look so easy. Well, finally, what the engineer from FINA, who was in the back seat of the helicopter, he's about to lose his lunch with all the zigzagging. He finally yelled out," Get that lawyer away from those controls." And so the pilot took the controls back and I didn't even ask again if I could give it another try.
And when we let off the two people from FENA, they both gave you rather nasty looks as they got their materials out of the helicopter and went to their offices. In fact, a few weeks later, we had to return to Austin to have a follow-up hearing at the Railroad Commission. And again, we called up FINA to ask them if their engineer and geologist would like to ride with us down there. And they said," Oh, no, we're going to drive down there.
We'll just meet you down there." Now, living the Christian life is a lot like trying to fly that helicopter. We have to keep in the center of the road. And that isn't something that's easy to do, because Jesus told us that we were going to have to walk down a narrow road. His words were," Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction." And there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way, which leads to life.
And there are few who find it. So there are actually two chasms on either side of this narrow road that most professing Christians fall in one or the other. Now, on the one side, there's the chasm of worldliness, laxity, carnality. And it would appear that the vast majority of professing Christians fall into that chasm. They feel the Christian walk is too stringent for them. They want an easier road. And there's no shortage of preachers who are going to tell them that they don't really have to carry their cross.
They don't really have to be separate from the world. They don't really have to live godly lives. That grace alone is all they need, and they can walk and trample on the teachings of Jesus Christ, and that's just fine with Him. Now, the Primitive Church knew nothing about any such teaching. They understood the role of grace in salvation. They certainly didn't try to earn their salvation by their works, but they also understood the role that obedience plays in salvation. And what Jesus said, they believe.
And He had told His church," He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is He who loves me." So if we're not keeping His commandments, we don't love Jesus. And if we don't love Jesus, we are not going to be in the Kingdom of Heaven. That's John 14:21.
Again, John 15:10, Jesus said," If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love." John 15:10, and then John 15:60 says," If anyone does not abide in Me," you just said that you abide in Him by keeping His commandments because of loving Him.
But He says," If anyone does not abide in Me, He is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned." Couldn't get more direct than that, and Jesus made it so clear. Don't think you could ignore His commandments and imagine that you still love Him because you don't. And that's why he said," Strive to enter through the narrow gate. For many, I said you will seek to enter and will not be able." That's Luke 13:24.
So even entering the narrow gate isn't easy, and continuing on the way isn't easy as well. Now, I'm not going to be focusing tonight on this broad chasm that most professing Christians fall in. I've talked a lot about that in other messages. I would refer you to the messages I've had on what the early Christians believed on salvation, what they believed on eternal security. And also the book, The Real Heritage Please Stand Up, talks a lot about that.
So tonight we're going to be talking more about the chasm that lies on the other side of the road. And this is the chasm of Phariseeism. The Pharisee tackles the hard sayings of Jesus, and he's willing to reject whirlines. However, the Pharisee does these things in the flesh, not by the grace of God. So outwardly, he may look like an obedient Christian, and he certainly imagines himself as a godly obedient Christian.
And yet what Jesus sees in his heart is not a love of God, a love of Jesus, a love of his fellow man, but a Pharisee, the very type of people he condemned. The Pharisee puts far more importance on the external commandments of Scripture than he does on the internal matters. The Pharisees often has little love for others, little patience with Christians who don't seem as strong as he is. And of course, he is righteous in his own eyes.
Now, when I use the term he, I'm using it in the biblical sense of referring to men and women alike. Either one can be a Pharisee. Now, as I said, this is the area we want to focus on tonight because this message is on being a radical Christian, not on being a lazy Christian, being a worldly Christian. Like I say, that chasm I've already talked about in other messages. But I've observed that so many people who want to be a radical Christian end up falling off the narrow road into the ditch of Phariseism.
Now, when I use the word radical, I'm using it in a good sense. Radical means going back to the roots of something. So I'm talking about root original Christianity. When I use the term radical Christian, I'm talking about a Christian who is serious about his Christian want. I'm referring to persons who are trying to live by the Sermon on the Mount. Now, I don't purport to be any sort of Christian mentor. I'm not speaking to you like," Oh, I'm the guy who's got it all figured out.
I'm the guy who has the perfect walk with God." No, I'm talking to you as a fellow brother, as a fellow pilgrim on this narrow way. And I can assure you I'm guilty of many of the things that I will be talking about tonight. And other things that I'll be discussing, if I'm not personally guilty of it, it's things that I've observed in fellow pilgrims going down this road. Now, I think all of us are familiar with what the church in general calls the hard sayings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
For example, not swearing, no divorce, loving your enemies, not serving mammoth. Now, those are just as much teachings of Jesus as are you need to be born again. But I'm not going to be focusing on them today because I'm assuming that most of you hearing this are already obedient, or at least recognize that you need to be obedient in those areas, that they're not optional for Christians. So I'm not going to be spending any time on those commandments, but in doing so, I'm not minimizing them.
I say many of those have a separate message I've delivered at other times just on those issues alone, like war and divorce, things like that. But there's another part, another side to the sermon on the Mount, that often we seem to ignore. If you have your Bible handy, turn with me to Matthew chapter 7, verses 1 through 5. Now, here Jesus said, and this is part of the Sermon on the Mount, judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged.
And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye? And look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite. First, remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
You know, it's interesting how many Christians there are, there's certainly a small minority, but there are thousands of us who are willing to obey what Jesus said about swearing, about non-resistance. But then when we get to this passage of the Sermon on the Mount, we find that for us, this is a hard saying. We have somehow convinced ourselves that, oh, Jesus didn't really mean what He said there. We think we can criticize other Christians and pick at them without mercy.
And we delude ourselves into thinking," Well, no, I'm not really judging. I'm letting the Scriptures judge." Or," Oh, I'm simply inspecting fruit." Jesus said," You'll know them by your fruit, and so I'm just inspecting your fruit." Now, there is certainly a place of inspecting the fruit of others, of observing what fruit they are producing. But like I say, it's so easy to dilute ourselves, just the way the Pharisees deluded themselves.
I mean, they were certain that they were walking closely with God, that if the true Messiah came, He would certainly give them a pat on the back and praise them for their godliness. And they were blind to the reality of their own spiritual condition. Now, again, generally professing Christians today go to the other extreme. And they don't want to ever speak out against sin. I mean, we have to preach against sin. We have to set an example against it.
We have to talk to our brother who is in sin in accordance with what Jesus said. But we have to do that without a spirit of self-righteousness and judgmentalness. And so it comes down to a balance. It's like flying that helicopter, keeping that little ball in the middle of that instrument. We have to keep our feet on this narrow path that is so easy to slip off of. Now, judging others can come in many different forms, and it can focus on a lot of different issues.
Now, some of them are things like dress, grooming, lifestyle, which are all areas that every church should have teaching in. We're not being Pharisaical because we preach against immodest dress or worldly entertainment. That's the job that shepherds are given. That's what they're supposed to be doing. At the same time, we have to be careful that we don't turn our own applications of biblical principles on those issues into laws written by Jesus when He didn't write Him. Again, that was the problem of the Pharisees.
They thought, well, we can add to the commandments that Moses gave us. And we're not sinning in doing that because we're helping people to stay within the bounds of the law. And I think when the Pharisees originated, their heart was perhaps in the right place. But by the time of Jesus' day, they had elevated their own applications of things such as not working on the Sabbath into a whole list of specific commandments that they thought every other Jew needed to live by.
It's certainly one thing for us as a church to say," This is what the compact that we're going to make as members of this church that we are going to dress a certain way, or we're going to all avoid a certain form of entertainment." And if we do that as part of a personal covenant, as part of a church covenant, I think that's acceptable to God.
But then if we make our church covenant the measuring stick by which we measure all other Christians, then we can become Pharisaical and ourselves end up not being on the narrow road that we think we're on. But an area that particularly concerns me where I see a lot of Phariseeism is when we get to theologs. I've read certainly quite a number of books and a number of writings from the Middle Ages that describe the horrible persecution of, quote," heretics" during the Middle Ages.
And I think most of us tonight would look back at those so-called heritages, such as the Waldensians or the Anabaptists and say," Hey, they were the true Christians back then." Because more often than not, they were the ones who were on the right road, the ones that the church persecuted as heretics. They were usually teaching the same thing that primitive Christians had taught.
The irony is that today, the great, great, great grandchildren of those persecuted Christians are sometimes just as intolerant and judgmental as were the heresy hunters of the Middle Ages who persecuted our spiritual forefathers. Now, my particular ministry, the Ministry of Scroll Publishing, has been to bring to light the teachings and practices of the early church, the church that existed before Constantine legalized Christianity.
Now, today, there are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Christians who well recognized that the church went astray after the Council of Nicaea and after Christianity had been legalized by Constantine. And they professed the same thing that I've been saying for over a decade now, that we need to get back to what the primitive church practice, to what the primitive church believed.
However, what I've observed is that the minute they find out that the primitive church believes something that doesn't fit what their church teaches, well, suddenly their response is anything but humble. I could show them a particular doctrine that the early church believed and could demonstrate that this fits the overwhelming testimony of the sacred Scriptures that is the most literal interpretation of the teachings we have on that subject in the New Testament.
And show them that the primitive Christians who lived right after the time of the New Testament, that they all believed this a certain way. And yet none of that matters. Well, if that's the case, then the view is, well, then the entire early church was wrong. It's certainly not us who could be wrong. The early church was wrong. Now, I don't mean to set up the early church on a pedestal that they were infallible.
I think we all have the requirement that it is a necessity that we all carefully search the Scriptures and see what the Scriptures say, looking at all of the verses, giving them their most literal and serious application. But I think the testimony of the early Church plays such an important role because we can see how they understood those same Scriptures.
And as I've said in so many of my messages, if you want to know what the early Christians believed on just about any given subject, simply take all the verses in the New Testament on that subject. Give them a very literal and a very serious application. And invariably, you'll find that's just what the pregnant Christians believe. It's all right there in Scripture.
You know, in some instances, I could even show professing Christians that the leader who started their movement believed the way the early church believed as well. And even that doesn't persuade. Everyone else is wrong. The one who started this church, he was wrong then, if that's what he thought. That's what the early church believed they're wrong. Everyone is wrong except us.
Now, I realize that it's no easy thing for a church or a group of churches to change what they've been teaching and believing for a century or so, or in some instances for many centuries, it obviously could be quite disruptive to what they have preserved, to their entire church. It could lead to division and anarchy to suddenly say," Okay, we're gonna drop this thing that we've taught for century after century." And I certainly don't expect any church to change what they believe overnight.
In fact, I don't even have a quarrel with them if they choose not to change what they believe at all. So long as they're not judgmental, so long as at least they can say, well, you know, the early Christians may have been right on that point, but, you know, I'm not sure that they were. And at the present time, I don't think I could stretch myself quite far enough to be able to adopt that teaching myself. That's fine. We can still be friends. We can still be brothers. I'm just telling you my feelings.
Now, I'm not speaking for Jesus Christ. I'm not purporting to say He doesn't care what we teach. I'm just saying, hey, I can work with somebody. I can be a brother with somebody who is not convinced that the early church was right on a given point. The only thing I can't work with is Phariseeism. And I can't fathom what goes on in a person's heart when they're shown solid evidence for a particular doctrine.
And they don't only reject it outright, but then they label the early Christians as heretics for believing that. And more often than not, I'm usually labeled as a heretic for even bringing these things to light. What sort of judgment are we opening ourselves up to from Jesus Christ when we do that? He said, we're going to be judged the same way that we judge others. We're going to condemn somebody as a heretic, saying that they are an apostate Christian or that they were holding to apostasy, teaching apostasy.
And what if it turns out we're the ones who were wrong, that we're the ones teaching apostasy? Where does that put us? Well, it's something we need to seriously think about because Jesus was not joking when he said that we are going to be judged the same way we judge other people. And you know he said, we shouldn't even be angry with a brother. We shouldn't even call someone as a King James translates as fool.
Well, I would a whole lot rather someone call me a fool or call me foolish than to call me a heretic, to say that I'm teaching something wrong, something opposed to pure Christianity. Now, I'm not so egotistical that I think that everything I believe is necessarily right. I assume the early church were probably wrong on some points that I'm probably wrong on some of the points that I believe. And I assume that that's true of just about every other Christian and every other church that exists.
But we don't have to judge other people. We can hold to what we think is right. And yet we can be charitable with other people, particularly, like you say, when they've got solid scriptural evidence and they've got the solid testimony of the primitive Christians on their side. Now, another characteristic of we radical Christians to our everlasting shame is that we tend to be terribly divisive.
I can't help but noticing that within just three bodies of professing Christians, that is the Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Coptic Church. There are hundreds of millions of professing Christians. Now, hey, I'm with most of you on this. I do not regard the vast bulk of them as being genuine Christians. I see those systems as having a lot of error in them, and that the majority of people in those churches are on the Broadway leading to destruction.
Some would say every one of them in there, I'm a little slower to pass judgment on other people because I think God's grace can cover doctrinal errors that I think all of those churches hold to. If a person truly loves Jesus Christ and is sincerely trying to walk by His commandments. But anyway, the point is that, you know, let's say all of those are apostate bodies, and yet they're able to stay united. Like you say, just in three bodies, you've got hundreds of millions of professing Christians.
Okay, but now let's look at we radical Christians. So Christians who are serious about living by the Sermon on the Mount, I would say that our numbers are probably less than 1/10 of 1% of the members of those other giant visible bodies. And yet we're scattered into literally thousands of different sects and little groups. I mean, that is terrible. That we're saying these apostate ones can all stay together, and we who are truly walking in the Spirit, that we have to keep dividing.
And yet Jesus, what was on His heart just before He was arrested was that all of His followers would be one. So let's not imagine that Jesus doesn't care if we're all divided. He cares very much. In fact, division is a very, very serious sin. Turn with me to Galatians 5, verses 15 through 26. Here Paul said, well, I'll start with verse 14," For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another." I say then," Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." Now, the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred.
Now, again, we radical Christians, you know, would check those off. Oh, yes, I'm not guilty of adultery, fornication, yes, uncleanness. No, none of those things. But listen to this. Hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, acetates, envy. And then finally, murders, drunkenness, revelies, and the line. Paul says, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Let's just stop there and reflect on what he has said. Like I say, we purport to be radical Christians. Yes, we're very conscious of not living in adultery or lewdness or idolatry. Anything dealing with sorcery. Certainly not murders. We won't even take up arms to go to war when our country calls us to. We keep away from intoxicating beverages. And we think, yeah, see, I'm not worldly and fleshly like the Christians in these other churches.
Yeah, but he lives right in there along with sorcery and adultery and murder and drunkenness. He lists contentions, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies. So often, maybe I should say always. That's what leads to divisions in the body. I realize that it's hard for us to stay together when we're trying to take Jesus' commandments seriously and to stay in a given body is going to pull us down the broad road of spiritual carnality. But we cannot have a systematic spirit.
It's not an option. It's not a little thing when we're contentious and we're prone to divide. Now, again, I realize how difficult it is. I'm on the same path, or I'm certainly trying to be on the same path that all of you are. We don't want to compromise Jesus' teachings, even on little matters.
And that's what's led us to the particular fellowship that we're in, because we want to be part of a fellowship that teaches the full gospel, that doesn't whitewash over the teachings that are uncomfortable in our culture today. It sticks to the faith that was once for all handed down. And I know it seems like the only way we can join with others is to compromise an important doctrine or an important lifestyle issue. Now, I don't purport to have the answer to this situation.
I mean, it seems like we're in such a mess now that only a direct intervention of God can correct things, can bring all of us radical Christians into one body. But maybe we don't have to be part of an organic structure. I don't mean that there's no room for organic structures. What I'm saying, though, is we can have our churches, our conferences, our denominations, perhaps, yet that shouldn't keep us from viewing other people as our fellow Christian.
We don't want to equate our little structure as being thee and the only body of Jesus Christ. That our little group constitutes the whole body. That's where we fall into the sins that Paul is talking about that in God's eyes are just as serious as murder. I mean, you might as well go out there and kill someone. You might as well go out there and be drunk every day, be practicing witchcraft. As far as your salvation, that is because God lumps them all together. And he said," I'm telling him, don't be fooled.
Those who practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God." And even though, like I say, I don't know how to bring all of our little separated groups together, but I think there are things that we can do even now with the present situation. We can look at our doctrinal differences in light objectively of what the Scriptures actually say.
Looking at all of the verses, then looking at how other radical Christian groups understand those verses, looking into how the primitive church understood those verses, and at least have some flexibility. As I said earlier, if we feel we can't change what our church holds to, we can at least be charitable and recognize, hey, we may be wrong. This is what we see. This is the light that we have, but we're not going to judge somebody else. Maybe we're wrong and they're right.
Without worrying right at this moment about organic unity, we can all take an honest look at other professing Christians who are serious about their Christian walk. Do we see the evidence of God's Spirit in their lives? Is there evidence that Jesus is their Lord, that they have a real relationship with Jesus Christ? If we see that evidence, that fruit, then I think, you know, it's entirely possible. I think it's entirely likely that God accepts them as a Christian.
So if God can overlook their doctrinal errors or what we think are doctrinal errors, then why can't we? When we identify such Christians, we should ask ourselves, how can I help and encourage and support them? Because these people are fellow brothers in Christ. I think they've got some wrong views on a couple of doctrinal points. And I think maybe there are lacks in this area of the Christian life, or maybe they're too stringent in some of these other areas. They're still my brother.
Maybe there are ministries in which we can all work together as fellow believers. I'm not talking about working with apostate groups. I'm talking about other serious, radical Christians. We should ask ourselves, is there something maybe that I can learn from them? Is there something our church can learn from that other church, what they're doing? Now, a related sin that we radical Christians tend to have is that so often we are inflexible because we associate flexibility with compromise.
And we know that compromise is a sin. And unfortunately, we think that flexibility is a sin, and that inflexibility is a virtue. Now, by compromise, I mean taking a clear commandment of Jesus Christ, either of something that we must do or something we must not do, and watering it down or ignoring it. That's compromising. And we cannot do that if we want to abide in Jesus Christ. Now, flexibility is taking something that is not a commandment of Jesus Christ.
Maybe there is a principle in the Scripture, and we are applying that principle. Maybe there's a doctrine that isn't crystal clear, that conscientious Christians have understood these verses in different ways. Where there isn't a clear commandment, a clear doctrinal teaching, then flexibility is being able to recognize," Hey, there's maybe more than one way to apply this principle.
There's maybe more than one way to understand this scriptural passage." Now, I think all of us would agree that there has been no more radical follower of Jesus Christ than the Apostle Paul. I mean, he gave up everything for Christ, including in the end his own line. He courageously stood up for what was right, even when it meant having to confront Peter, for example, face-to-face. I don't think any of us would say," Yeah, Paul was a compromising Christian. He was a lukewarm Christian.
He was an apostate." No, I mean, we would look at him as the exemplar, the mentor, walking in the example that he set as he walked in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. But did you ever realize that Paul was a very flexible Christian? Let me show you what I mean. Journal with me to Galatians chapter 5, where we were reading before. I never did finish that passage. Let me do that just so I don't keep you hanging for the rest of this message. Galatians 5:22, where we stop.
After describing the works of the flesh, which includes dissensions and heresies, and by the way, the word that translated heresy, what it originally meant was not someone with a false teaching. It meant somebody who started a school of teaching after himself and drew disciples after himself. Now, the word has come to mean false teaching, because people who did that, who had their own little school of theology, their own school of thought, their own followers, invariably had erroneous teachings as well.
That's why they could be part of the general body of the church, why they had to draw people off to themselves. So, like I say, if we're drawing people after ourselves, having our own disciples apart from the rest of the body of Christ and were guilty of heresy. Anyway, now he gives us the contrast.
He says," But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such there is no law." He says," And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit," He says," Let us also walk in the Spirit.
Let us not become conceited." So when we think about that, those who have crucified the flesh, if we think we've crucified the flesh, well, we're kidding ourselves if we have selfish ambitions wanting to build up our own little kingdom here on the earth. If we promote dissension, heresies, if we do those things, we're walking in this flesh because the Spirit doesn't produce that kind of spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't.
All right, now going to the beginning of Galatians 5, Paul says, verses 1 through 3, says," Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty by which Christ has made us spree and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." He's talking about not going back to the Mosaic Law. And he makes that application. The next verse says," Indeed, I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing." And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law.
This is what the Judaizers were trying to force upon the Gentile converts that they had to be circumcised. Paul says in verse nine, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And so I mean, he's very strong on that. From reading this, it would sound like it is very wrong for a Gentile to be circumcised. Now let's go over to Acts chapter 16. And notice verses 1 through 3. We read talking about Paul. Then he came to Derby and Lyestra.
And behold, a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was Greek. He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted to have him go on with him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region, for they all knew that his father was Greek. Now what?
We just read where Paul says," If you become circumcised, then Christ profits you nothing, that you've gone back to the bondage of the law." And yet, what does He do? He has Timothy circumcised. See, there was no commandment from God, from Jesus Christ or from the Holy Spirit, that it is a sin to be circumcised. He was talking about a certain situation of people being forced to live under the Mosaic law or thinking they had to do that to be a Christian.
But notice how flexible he was, as we know him saying that he became a Jew so as to win Jews. Again, we're familiar with all that Paul says throughout his epistles about not returning to the Mosaic Law, that we are not under that law any longer. I mean, that seems to be the dominant theme in just about every single one of his epistles. And keeping that in mind, go to Acts chapter 21 and read verses 18 through 26. Where he says," On the following day, Paul went in with us to James and all the elders were present.
This was in Jerusalem. When he had greeted them, he told in detail those things which God had done among the Gentiles through His ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord and they said to Him," You see, brother, how many mirrors of Jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law.
But they have been informed about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the custom. What then? The assembly must certainly meet for they will hear that you have come. Therefore, do what we tell you. We have four men who have taken a vow.
Take them and be purified with them and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads and that all may know that those things of which they were informed concerning you are nothing, but that you yourself also walk orderly and keep the law. But concerning the Gentiles who believe, we have written and decided that they should observe no such thing, except that they should keep themselves from the things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.
Then Paul took the man and the next day, having been purified with them, entered the temple to announce the expiration of the days of purification at which time an offering should be made for each one of them. Now, what are we to make of that passage? What was Paul doing? Going to the temple, paying something to have a vowel released to the Jewish religious leaders? Was Paul a compromiser? No. No, he wasn't compromising anything. But Paul was flexible.
He had a set purpose in mind, and he reveals this in 1 Corinthians 9, verses 19 to 23 that I briefly alluded to earlier. He said," For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all that I might win the more. And to the Jews, I became as a Jew, that I might win Jew, to those who are under the law as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law." So he explains what he was doing. He was wanting to reach Jews.
And so he was willing to put himself under the law, at least temporarily, in order to be able to more effectively witness to Jews. Now, is it a sin for a Jew like Paul to live by some of the commandments of the Mosaic Law? No, no sin involved whatsoever. Now it's a sin. It was more than that. You're on the wrong road if you think living by the law is what gives you your salvation or that you must live under it in order to be a Christian, in order to be saved, then there would be sin.
But knowing that these things are not required any longer, but to just voluntarily live under, voluntarily live under them in order to reach other people. No, that's not a sin at all. Paul continues," To those who are without the law as without the law." And he's, again, not talking about any laws, but the Mosaic Law. He says," Not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ, then I might win those who are without law." He's talking about the Gentiles.
To the weak, I became as weak, that I might win the week. I've become all things to all men, that I might, by all means, save some. He concludes that this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may be partaker of it with you. You see the flexibility of Paul, who was one of the most radical Christian disciples Christianity has ever produced. And yet all could be flexible. Now, we don't want to take this further than what Paul did. He didn't say to the sinners, I became as a sinner.
He broke none of God's laws in order to do these things. He didn't say to the idolaters, I became an idolater. To the murderers, I became a murder. No, no, nothing like that. But things that were not required of God, things that were not sins in themself, he was willing to do in order to reach more people. And that's what we must be as well. If we're inflexible, then we aren't really a radical Christian. We're a carnal Christian masquerading as a radical one.
If Paul could be flexible on issues that were of such magnitude, having Timothy circumcised, shaving his head, going to the temple, all of these things, what excuse do we have to be stiff and unbending on issues that are far less important? After all, we serve a God who is flexible. If God weren't flexible, I can assure you He would have nothing to do with either you or I. Now, much of what we've talked about this evening has concerned churches or groups as a whole.
Now, for the last 10 minutes or so, I want to focus on us as individuals. Now, my observation has been that a large percentage of we radical Christians, ones that plain groups would refer to as seekers. But unfortunately, sadly, the majority of us are not team players. So many of us don't work to make the church that we are part of stronger. Instead, we help to tear it down. In fact, we are often the very ones who make the pastor's life miserable, trying to shepherd us.
But a person who is truly filled with God's Spirit is a team player. He can work with others in the church who perhaps have a different view of ministry than he does, maybe a different vision for the church. I mean, we earlier mentioned Paul. He was certainly a team player, if anyone ever has been. All the 12 apostles were. They worked together as a team. They all taught the same gospel. I mean, they were willing to make James, the leading elder or bishop there in Jerusalem, rather than one of them.
They were that flexible. They were that willing to work as a team that none of them tried to elevate himself over the other apostles or the others in the church. Most of the 12 apostles were selfless men who left no writings whatsoever.
They spent their lives bringing the gospel to the lost, and in the end, nearly all of them laid down their lives for Christ without anything ever being written further about them, without their ever writing an autobiography so everyone would know what a great Christian they had been. But so many of us radical Christians aren't team players. We're individualists. Now, an individualist can take on several forms, and I want to talk to you about some of the types of individualists. First, there's the Prima Donna.
This is the person who wants to run the whole show. They've always got to be uprun. They want everything to center on them. If they're a leader, they don't honor the ideas and inputs of other people. No, everything has to be done their way. If they're not a leader, an official leader in the church, well, they try to run the show anyway. They talk the most at all of the group meetings. They usually also talk the loudest, that they pray the longest when there's group prayers.
They sing the loudest in congregational singing. They seem to always have an idea on everything. They always have an agenda. And they often think they're a team player because usually they're hard workers, they're creative people, but they're not team players. They stifle everyone around them because everything has to be done their way. That's the prima donna. Number two, another type of non-team player is the perfectionist.
This is similar to the first one, the Prima Donna, but these people are different in that they don't care if things are done their way or not, just so they're done God's way. Or I should say what they think is God's way. Now, again, they're different from the Prima Donna and that often they're not loud or pushy people. In fact, they honestly think they're concerned for what is best for everyone. To them, there is one perfect answer for every decision that has to be made.
Now they have no problem submitting to others so long as they're convinced that a course of action that their church is taking is truly the right and the best way to do something. But if they think that they're right and the church is wrong, I mean, they're going to buck the whole group. And so often they're stiff, they're unyielding. They're the exact opposite of Paul and the apostles who could work together, who could be flexible on things that weren't actual sin.
Now, a third type of individualist is the complainer. They probably see themselves as submissive to the group. They may not try to run the meetings, and often they're not loud or pushy people, but they're never happy. They're always complaining about something. The sermons aren't interesting. The church doesn't have enough outreach. They don't care enough for the poor, or somebody has wronged them or offended them in the church.
I mean, it may have been 10 years ago, but they're still telling everyone about it," Oh, poor me." And in today's worldly church, they're usually labeled as a hurting person, but often they're the ones who hurt others, and they usually do great damage to the church that they're in. When they do have a legitimate complaint, so rarely do these people go to the pastor where they should, or to go to the person who's offended them. No, their primary tool is gossip. They're going to tear down rather than to build up.
And so often they tear down and demoralize the leadership structure. Those are three types of individualists, of people who are not team players. I'm sure there's others as well. Those are the three that have caught my notice, and I'm sure I've been guilty of many of those things myself. But now let's describe a team player, what we need to be. A team player, whatever gifts, whatever time, whatever abilities that he or she have, they give these to God.
They give them to the church, to the group that they're part of. Rather than stifling everyone else's creativity, keeping everyone else from being able to have input. They want to bring it out, bring out the best in everyone else. They do give input and feedback to the group. They participate in discussions. That's what you need to do. Don't think you're doing something godly by always being the silent one who never says anything.
On the other hand, when we participate, when we speak out in groups, if we're a team player, we realize that our concept of what is right is not necessarily God's concept. What we think is the best course of action may not really be the best. And if our idea, our input is not accepted by the group, then we drop it. We don't just leave and go do our own thing. We don't become contentious. We don't start gossiping and trying to tear down the leaders when they didn't want to do it our way.
And when we're a team player, we don't complain about things either vocally or even inwardly. It doesn't mean we're blind to problems and shortcomings of the group we're part of. And it's not wrong to work to try to amend those things, to make our group stronger and more scriptural. But we don't focus on where our church is falling short. We focus on what our group is doing right.
A team player honors and appreciates the contributions that others in the group are making, rather than looking at where everybody else in the group is failing. Now, again, if we're a team player and there is a real problem, we will speak out. If they're sin, we'll go and talk to that person the way Jesus told us to. If that fails, then the team player talks to the leadership. The team player doesn't go around gossiping to other people. He or she goes through the channels that God has set up.
A team player tries by his presence to bring joy to the group that he's part of, building others up, always passing out words of encouragement to others. That's what a team player is. That's what we want to be if we're truly a radical Christian. Well, now in closing, let's look at some of the things we talked about. We've ended by talking about being a team player. If you're not a team player, I mean, and look at yourself objectively. Really lay yourself open before God and others.
And if you see you're not a team player, then I encourage you to pray to God, to help you to be one. If you see yourself as being guilty of some of the things that we've talked about tonight, I encourage you to confess it before God, to repent, to resolve that with God's help, you're not going to be that kind of person anymore. And please pray for me that I can change in areas where I fall short, where I've been guilty of not being a team player, where I've fallen on either side of the narrow road.
Because if we radical Christians are serious about our Christianity, then we have to be balanced. We can't be judgmental. We can't be systematic and contentious. We can't be stiff-necked, inflexible people. Instead, the truly radical Christian is a team player building up Christ Church and building up his fellow Christian.