Rev. Sean Carroll: Well, good morning, everybody. Good morning. Good morning, those of you who are joining us online. My name is Sean Carroll. I have the privilege of being one of the pastors on staff here at Ward Church.
Mostly, I'm found up at the Farmington Hills campus on Sunday, and so a special shout out to everybody at the Farmington Hills campus. I miss you guys and I love you. You don't know this, they're probably cheering right now. I wanna start out today by asking you guys a question. I want you to find the common denominator between these stories.
And I promise you, it's easy. Don't stress. Okay? You're gonna figure it out. Alright?
One person, one couple, they accidentally make a wrong turn, are forced into a church randomly. They're still at that church twenty years later. Another couple was invited by friends to a church, and they're still there five years later. Still another person came looking for some mental health support and now they are inviting other people to the mental health support group at that church. There's another group that was looking for hope and their friends invited them.
And now they've been going here so long that their kids are grown and still attend that church. Yet, another family visited the Playscape, not even knowing that this was a church. But they stayed because why does a church have a Playscape for the community and not for themselves? I think you guys figured it out. Right?
The common denominator, these are all ward church families. Some of you may be in this room. Someone after the first service came up to me and was like, hey, that one was me. Right? And I was like, it sure was.
And so these are all real life people that chose to come to Ward Church. Now, as pastors, we get to choose churches too. Nobody forced me to come here. I definitely felt the call of the lord on my life to come here, but I was not forced to. And so today, what I wanna talk about is why I chose to be a pastor in our denomination, which is the EPC.
Let me pray, and then we'll get into it. Heavenly father, we come before you. Lord, as the worship team just saying, have your way with us. Lord, we are your creation. We exist to give you glory and honor.
We exist to find joy in doing the things that you have created in advance for us to do. Lord, have your way with us. May your spirit be present today. Lord, may anything that's not of you fall away, and anything that you need us to learn, may you speak to us by your spirit, Lord. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.
Now, EPC is our denomination. It stands for Evangelical Presbyterian Church. There's about six twenty different churches throughout the country that have this denomination in their title. Now, each summer, in the third week of June, which if you're math people out there, is this week, there's a general assemble assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. That's a mouthful.
Basically, what it means is each year, we gather together for prayer, for fellowship, for networking, for encouragement, for strengthening, for worshiping our Lord and Savior, and to figure out and maintain, to make sure that we are still on the mission that Jesus has entrusted us to do. Last year, Ward Church hosted it, and so if you volunteered last year or were part of it last year, thank you for your contribution. You're familiar with what it's like. This year, there's a group of about 11 of us from Ward Church going to Denver tomorrow for a week long general assembly. So each year, we have a chance to kind of talk about, okay, what is our denomination?
We focus on the Scriptures throughout the year, but once a year, we like to bring, what is Evangelical Presbyterian Church? What does that mean? What does our denomination mean? One of the things that I appreciate about the EPC is that it's very clear on what we believe, and it's very clear on who we are. We are committed to three things.
The the authority of scripture, the historic Christian faith, and the mission of making disciples in the name of Jesus. Now, at the same time, while we recognize that faithful Christians hold these things in common, there are some other issues where faithful Christians can disagree. They can come to different conclusions and they can do that while worshiping together, while serving together, side by side in the same church, and in the same denomination. This commitment is captured in a motto that's become associated with the EPC that says, in essentials, unity, in non essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity. Or as we often say today, in essentials, unity, in non essentials, liberty, and in all things, love.
Now, that sounds simple enough, right? It's about 10 words long but it raises an important question and maybe you're thinking of this yourself. What is an essential and what is a non essential? And who gets to decide? And and why do they get to decide?
But there's another question that I think is even more important and that question is, how do we treat people who have different non essentials than us? Romans 14 helps answer that question for us. Paul is running to Christians who love Jesus. They believe the gospel. They belong to the same church, and yet they disagree over matters of conscience.
Some believers felt freedom in Christ to eat certain foods, others did not. Some viewed certain days as sacred, others did not. Notice what Paul doesn't say. Paul doesn't say that the truth does not matter. Paul does not say that doctrine and theology and what you believe about the Bible does not matter.
He does not say that everyone is right. Instead, what he does is he teaches them to distinguish between essentials and non essentials and how to love one another in both of those and here's the key, that we have freedom in Christ. We are free but we are free to act like Christ acted. When kids start to think about college or or people start to look for jobs and careers, they often pray and say, god, what is it that you want me to do? Where is it that you want me to go?
And sometimes they ask for discernment in that and when people come to me and they say that, I'm like, hey, listen. If Jesus or the Holy Spirit gives you an answer where to go, you gotta follow him. You got, you gotta listen, right? But if he doesn't and you're like, I need an answer. Listen, he's given you your answer.
He's shown you how to live and he says, you can do this career or that career. Whatever you feel, you would enjoy more but whatever you do, make sure you sign the light of Jesus at that place. If you're trying to decide which college to go to, wherever you go, make sure that you shine the light of Jesus in that place. So let's talk about this motto. In essentials, unity.
Right? The EPC has identified seven different essentials of our faith. You'll notice that there's eight on the screen. Math people, good job. The first one is the foundation by which we identify all the other seven.
Okay? Does that make sense? Because who gets to decide what's an essential? Is it the culture? Is it the pastor?
Is it the denomination? Is it you? Is it me? Nope. The EPC has decided.
The Bible is the foundation by which we will decide what all of the essentials are. Right? So that means these essentials, whether you go to a Roman Catholic church, whether you go to an Orthodox church, or whether you go to a Protestant church, you're gonna encounter these things. Whether you go to church in America, whether you go to church in Africa, or if you're in the persecuted church in Asia, these essentials will be present. Okay?
These are the seven essentials. Again, that ground rule, rule zero, is that the Bible is infallible. It has no errors when it was written. The Bible is true. Got it?
Okay. So, let's let's go through these seven essentials. These essentials can be found on the EPC website with more detail and a lot of scripture reference if you want to look there. We also cover this in the partnership class. So, if any of you are like, this looks familiar, that's where you heard it.
Alright? So, the first one, that god exists in a trinity. There is one god who eternally exists as father, son, and holy spirit. There's not three gods. There's one god in three persons.
That god is the author and sustainer of life. He is the one that created life from the ground up, and he is the one that make sure it continues to exist. He was always there. He always will be there, the beginning, and the end. That's god.
The second essential is that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. He's not partly man, partly god. He is fully god and fully man because if he's not god, he has no power or authority to save us And if He's not man, He cannot represent our sins as fallen creatures. Jesus lived on this Earth. He was sinless.
He died on the cross as atonement for our sins. That's your sins and mine and anyone who calls Jesus their lord gets this. He rose again on the third day and he's now sitting at god's right hand praying for us. Is that not comforting? The third essential is that the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ.
The spirit's role is never to draw attention to himself. The spirit points us to Jesus. He transforms us into the image of Jesus and he empowers us for ministry to proclaim the gospel to the nations. The fourth essential is that there is salvation by grace alone. We are not saved by works.
We are not saved by our own efforts. We are not saved by our church attendance. We are not saved by checking boxes. We are not saved by following discipleship pathways. We're not saved by memorizing scripture.
We're not saved by our morality. We're not saved by religious performance, and we're not saved by being good people. That's not an exhaustive list by the way. I just want you to know there's a lot of reasons why people think that we are saved. None of those are it.
We are saved by grace through faith in the completed work of Jesus. Amen. Thank you. That's it. There is nothing else by which we are saved, and all one needs to do is proclaim that Jesus is lord by confessing with your heart, by confessing with your mouth, and believing in your heart that Jesus raised him from the dead.
Fifth essential is the reality of the universal church. That god's people are larger than one congregation, one denomination, one culture, one nation, or even one time period. Every believer who trusts in Christ and was called by his spirit belongs to Christ's church. If we are part of Christ's church, we should act like it. That was five.
Sixth potential is that Jesus coming back. Jesus coming back y'all. And when he comes, here's what's gonna happen. Every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is lord to the glory of god the father and then lastly, we are called to fulfill the great commission until he does come back. Jesus has entrusted us with one mission.
We need to make our purpose his mission. Our church's purpose is his mission. So, these truths, these seven essentials plus the fact that we get this from the Bible, these are the truths worth uniting around. These are the things that we rally behind. These are the truths worth defending.
These are the truths that have been confessed by Christians for centuries. You see, unity in the church doesn't mean that you agree on everything. If that was the case, I might be in church with like two people in this room. Right? Unity means that we agree on the most important things.
Those seven essentials that we just talked about. Paul never said that every issue is disputable. Just because there was disagreements does not mean that everything is disputable. The gospel, not disputable. The identity of Jesus, not disputable.
The authority of scripture, not disputable. Christian unity is built around shared truth. So, those are the essentials. Now, let's talk about some non essentials. Now, this is where things get interesting.
The fact that we agree that the Bible is true is important. That's our first rule, right? But just because the Bible is infallible, that doesn't mean that our interpretations are infallible. The Bible is perfect. We are not.
And sometimes, faithful Christians studying the same Bible come to different conclusions. Right? That's exactly what Paul is talking about in Romans 14. Listen, verse one, except those, the one whose faith is weak without quarreling over disputable matters. You see that phrase is important.
Paul recognizes that there are issues that faithful Christians may disagree about. Not because scripture is unclear on everything, not because truth doesn't matter, but because sincere believers, sometimes, sometimes can interpret passages differently. Let me give you a few different examples of some of these non essentials. The first one is women in leadership. There are faithful Bible believing Christians who read scripture, and they conclude that certain leadership roles are reserved for men.
They emphasize certain scriptures. There are other faithful Bible believing Christians who read scripture and conclude that women can serve in all leadership positions. These people emphasize different scriptures. Both of them are looking at God's word for what is true. Both groups believe the Bible.
Both groups love Jesus. Both groups really are trying to be faithful. You see, the disagreement here is not over whether Scripture is authoritative. The disagreement is over how certain passages should be interpreted in light of other passages. Now, I just wanna be clear.
Ward Church, we believe that there is no office that women cannot hold. Women have the same gifts and the same spirit that men have, and I have the privilege and the honor and the joy to serve alongside women pastors that preach up here, along with ruling elders that help lead our session. Okay? They're clearly gifted by the Holy Spirit. That's where Ward stands, but it is a nonessential.
Another common nonessential is speaking in tongues. Some Christians believe that those miraculous gifts continue today in the same way that they operated in the early church. Other believers saying that those gifts were unique to the time of Acts and we no longer have access to those gifts And still, other believers say that you have to speak in tongues before you are truly a devoted believer. Again, all groups believe the Bible. The difference is interpretation.
And then lastly, baptism. At Ward, we practice infant or covenant baptism that God's promises is faithful for us and for our children after us, and we practice believers baptism. Other churches only practice believers baptism, and still others baptize using different modes. Do you dunk? Do you sprinkle?
Do you pour? What do you do? What's the right way? Honestly, all are trying to obey Christ, and they're all trying to follow scripture. These are important issues.
You understand? These are not not important. These are important issues, but they are not gospel issues. They're not essential to our faith. The EPC allows liberty in these areas because faithful Christians have disagreed throughout history what the right answer is.
And I'll tell you what, all those people that disagreed and have moved on from this life, they are all able to stand not because of what they believe, but because Jesus is able to make them stand. Alright? So, non essentials. Important but not essential. Liberty does not mean that we compromise.
Liberty does not mean that we are indifferent. Liberty means that we hold strong convictions while recognizing that others may arrive at different conclusions. As Paul says, each of them should be fully convinced in their own minds. Have convictions. Have strong convictions.
Have biblical convictions. Think deeply about scripture. Wrestle with it. But don't assume that every disagreement is a reason for division. The next one is in all things charity.
And this is where Paul spends most of his time, right? Augustine, who is often associated with this whole motto, he was known as the theologian of love. He wrote in Latin. He wrote the word caritas. That's where we get the word charity, right?
That makes sense. However, that word caritas written in Latin when translated to Greek is translated agape. Agape is the unconditional love with which god the father, god the son, and the god the holy spirit have for us. It is self giving love. It is self sacrificing love.
It's a kind of love that god showed to us through Christ. While we were sinners and enemies of god, Christ died for us. Unconditional love. All things, all things, all things unconditional love. And I think that's so fitting because it's not simply a category.
It's not like you have kindness and you have truth and you have justice and you have love. Love is not a category. Love is the atmosphere by which every category must operate. It is an overarching principle. Because you can have unity without love, but it becomes rigidity.
You can have liberty without love, and it just becomes selfishness. Love is what keeps both sides healthy. I want to give you three contrasts today. Okay? Position versus posture, liberty versus license, and conviction versus contempt.
You can hold the right position with the wrong posture. You can win an argument. You can be right, and you can still lose a relationship. You can be correct and you can still be un Christ like. Position versus posture.
The dacademy is not both truth and love. The true dacademy is truth in love. A small yet extremely important distinction. Notice what Paul says in verse three. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not Friends, the issue is not merely what we believe The issue is how do we treat others who believe differently Friends, the church desperately needs Christians who hold strong convictions with humble hearts.
The second one is liberty versus license. Christian freedom is not permission to do whatever we want. Now, while the blood of Christ did cover everything that we can do, we believe in a big god. It does not give us freedom. Christian liberty comes with responsibility to freely act like the one we are named after, Christ.
That's what you're free to do. We are called to use our freedom not for us but to find ways to build others up and to honor and glorify Christ. The question will not be, can I do this? The question is, does this help me to love god and to love others? Liberty versus license.
And then finally, we have conviction versus contempt. Paul never tells believers to abandon their conviction. He tells them to abandon contempt. There's a difference. Have convictions.
Have strong convictions. Look at god's word and see what it says and determine for yourself. This is what I believe god's word says. But friends, we can't be looking down on anyone who disagrees with us. We are not called to shun or shame them.
We do not assume bad motives. We do not question their faith. We do not treat them as enemies. The problem is rarely conviction. The problem is contempt.
When I disagree with you, the problem is not that my conviction is different than yours The problem is that I start to believe that my conviction is superior to yours and then that produces contempt inside of me. The church should be a place where people can disagree without despising one another A place where people can debate without dividing A place where people can hold convictions while extending grace at the same time. Why? Because everyone of us stands before the lord. Paul reminds us that we belong to Jesus.
Whether we live or die, we belong to the lord. The neighbor that you disagree with belongs to Jesus. The coworker who frustrates you, surely not at Ward Church, okay? Not here. They belong to Jesus.
The family member who sees things differently than you, they belong to Jesus. And one day, every single one of us will stand before him. That should produce humility. It should make us slow to judge and quick to love. Because ultimately, we don't stand before Jesus because of our convictions.
If we did, you and I, we would be standing side by side in hell. Friends, we all fall short of god's perfect demand on our lives. There is one saving grace and his name is Jesus. We stand because Jesus's perfect sacrifice is sufficient for all of our sins and all of our convictions. Both the correct ones and the incorrect ones.
So that's the motto. That's why I love the EPC. But there's one more reason, and we can't lose sight of this. It should always remain in our hearts. The EPC has a mission.
This is their mission statement. The primary mission of the EPC is evangelism. I love that. It says, what is the first mission of your church? Because ultimately, this motto, it's not about winning arguments.
It's not. It's not even just about convictions. It is about helping people to know Jesus. The goal is not theological precision. The goal is gospel proclamation.
The goal is making disciples. The goal is reaching people who are far from god and have completely different convictions than us. And one of the most powerful evangelistic tools that you and I have access to by the power of the spirit is the way that we love one another. Jesus said the world would know we're disciples by our love, and love shows itself most when it's with people who are enemies of you. Anyone can treat their best friend good, but how do we treat people who are different than us?
How do we treat people with different convictions, different morals? Do we still love then? It is not by unanimous agreement on secondary issues that we love people. It is not by perfect uniformity on all those issues. It is by our love.
When people see Christians treating another, treating one another with grace, humility, patience, and kindness, they catch a glimpse of the gospel itself because we are acting like Christ act and being kind and loving and gracious to those people who are far from god. So, friends, let us be a people who hold firmly to those essentials. Let us be people who extend liberty in non essentials and let us be people who practice love in all things because Christ loved us first. So, here's how I want to close. I want to read Romans 14 again in light of what we just learned or we're reminded of today and I want you to judge for yourselves whether the EPC and whether what I am saying is in accordance with scripture.
Remember, the EPC is not perfect. I am not perfect. None of us are. But Jesus is and so is his word. So, let's read it with a new lens on.
Remember, each of you needs to be convinced in your own minds. And so that means that sometimes, what we need to do is we need to do our own work of looking at god's scripture and seeing what it says. Each of you needs to, for yourself, decides what your convictions are. So my prayer is that by reading it again with this new lens on, it can be good practice for us. Can we read it one more time?
Alright. Romans fourteen one through 12. Accept the one whose faith is weak without quarreling over disputable matters. One person's faith allows them to eat anything, but another whose faith is weak eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not.
And the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does. For God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall, and they will stand for the lord is able to make them stand. Can I get an amen?
Amen. Thank you. Alright. One person considers one day more sacred than another. Another considers every day alike.
Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special, does so to the lord. Whoever eats meat, does so to the lord. For they give thanks to god and whoever abstains, does so to the lord and give thanks to god. For none of us lives for ourselves alone and none of us dies for ourselves alone.
If we live, we live for the lord and if we die, we die for the lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the lord of both the dead and the living. You then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt?
For we will all stand before god's judgment seat. It is written, as surely as I live, says the lord, every knee will bow before me. Every tongue will acknowledge god. So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we come before you humbled and awed That you have chosen to love us unconditionally, that you have chosen to die for our sins, not only ours, lord, but for all who are far off, that anyone who calls you lord and savior gets to be covered by your sacrifice. Lord, I ask in humble reliance of the Holy Spirit that you can help us to live as becomes believers of Jesus. That we can follow the way of the cross. Lord, may we never lose sight of the mission that you have entrusted to us to make disciples of all nations by loving them the way that you have loved us. Will you go before us this week so that we can fulfill that mission?
We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen.