Sermon Tone Analysis

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.

How can you say that we shall be set free?”

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

I know you are Abraham’s descendants.

Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word.

I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you do what you have heard from your father.”

“Abraham is our father,” they answered.

“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do the things Abraham did.

As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.  Abraham did not do such things.

You are doing the things your own father does.”

“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested.

“The only Father we have is God himself.”

Over the coming weeks, I intend to explore the question of what makes us Baptists.

Why are we Baptists, and not just Christians?

What truths are unique to Baptist theology?

How do we differ from other evangelicals?

These are questions that should concern us.

If we are just like other Christians, bringing nothing to the table to distinguish us from everyone else, perhaps we have no right to continue as a separate denomination.

If we are essentially like all other evangelical Christians, we should perhaps close the doors of this building and unite with some other evangelical church which is able to offer us the best deal for our presence.

I am convinced that Baptist theology is biblical theology, and that certain truths are distinctive for us as a people.

Historically, we Baptists influenced evangelicals to become baptistic.

In recent years, a form of evangelical ecumenism has influenced Baptists to become less distinctive.

It is time to seek again those ancient landmarks.

Do not move the ancient landmark

that your fathers have set.

[*Proverbs 22:28*][1]

 

I hold my convictions as a Baptist as a sacred trust.

The distinctive truths which marked us as a confessional people have been set as landmarks, and no conscientious Christian should ever seek to move those ancient landmarks.

I was not born Baptist, nor was I raised Baptist.

I gained Baptist convictions through study of the Word of God and through defence of this Faith in the arena of daily life.

Whenever someone asks me what I would be if I were not a Baptist, without hesitation I state that I would be ashamed.

We should be careful not to jettison the truths which have marked us as Baptists simply because we no longer wish to be burdened with them.

Those truths represent the labours of dedicated servants of the Lord Christ as they defined and defended this holy Faith throughout the long ages since the Saviour’s Resurrection.

Nor will we quickly desert these doctrinal tenets, if we but understand their significance and the consequences arising should we refuse to embrace them any longer.

During the coming weeks, I propose, by God’s help, to examine the distinctive truths which combined, define us as Baptists.

For the moment, you will do well to note these distinctive truths in the margin of your Bible.

The distinctive beliefs which mark us as Baptists include the following seven truths: the authority of Scripture; the lordship of Christ; a regenerate church membership; congregational church polity; religious liberty; soul competency; and believer’s baptism.

Individually, any of these truths may be claimed by other, especially evangelical Christians.

Taken together, these truths distinguish Baptists from other believers and make us the people we are.

Conflict between Authority and Experience — The words of the Saviour which have been preserved in the Scriptures are powerful and profound.

He was never superfluous in His statements to those about Him.

The opening words of our text are among the simplest, and yet most profound, statements imaginable.

If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free [*John 8:31, 32*].

It intrigues me that Jesus spoke these words to the Jews who had believed in Him.

Across North America on any given Sunday, thousands of sermons will be preached to those who are Christians, urging them to live like Christians.

Thousands more sermons will be preached to those who are not Christians, urging them to become Christians.

It is doubtful that many sermons are preached during that same timeframe to those who already believe the doctrines of Christianity and who think they are Christians, but who, nevertheless, have never come to the point of accepting Jesus as their Master and Saviour.

Tragically, I suspect that this is the situation confronting the average preacher in North America on any given Sunday.

Contemporary churches, including our Baptist churches, have many people seated in them who are not genuinely born-again Christians, but neither are they hostile to Christianity.

They believe the doctrines.

It is just that they have never committed themselves to Jesus Christ as Lord and they have not been born into the Family of God.

They do not deny Christ, but neither do they follow Him.[2]

A sense of the magnitude of the problem can be seen from the fact that in both Britain and the United States, well over ninety percent of the people surveyed in opinion polls claim that they believe in a personal God.

But very few, obviously, do anything about Him.

In many cases they do not even expose themselves to Christianity.[3]

According to the Barna Research Group, forty one percent of adults who attend Christian church services in a typical week are not born-again Christians.[4]

In effect, we have before us a conflict between authority and experience.

Jesus has presented a statement of truth, and the Jews surrounding Him are unable to understand what He is talking about because of their perception.

They are so focused on their religious experiences that they fail to note the authority presented.

Something like that has happened throughout the Christian world in this day.

The message of Christ is simple.

It does not aim to impress the elite of society; rather, it is presented so that the simplest hearer may understand that God loves His fallen creation.

This is not to say that the Christian message is simplistic—it is not.

The message of Christ the Lord is profound, originating in the heart of the transcendent God.

Those hearing the message of life are called to faith in the Son of God.

Faith in Christ precedes all else.

Scripture states, without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him [*Hebrews 11:6*].

Having believed, Christians appeal to biblical authority to justify every belief.

Ultimately, what an individual practises (to say nothing of what a congregation permits) is determined by how one arrives at the knowledge of God’s will.

For inquiring minds, this particular search is referred to as epistemology.

Epistemology is concerned for the basis of religious knowledge, and in the coming weeks, the epistemology I shall employ will be employed in a search for Baptist distinctives.

In recent years, a new basis for faith and practise has arisen among evangelicals.

Actually, it is not new, but it is novel in the recent practise of evangelical Christians.

Increasingly, evangelical Christians appeal to experience as authority for faith and practise.

Virtually any practise can be justified by an appeal to one’s own subjective experience.

In doing this, these experiential Christians deny the authority of the Word of God and jeopardise their own evangelistic and missionary vigour.

The even graver danger is that by exalting religious experience over biblical authority they will eventually be willing to authenticate the lack of belief of nominal Christian

Among these evangelical churches appealing to experience are a growing number who profess to be Baptists; but in reality whenever an individual exalts experience over Scripture for justification of action, they have ceased to be Baptist, much less Christian.

Historically, Baptists were known as a people of the Book, appealing to the Word for authority for faith and practise.

Tradition counted for nothing if the teachings of the Word were violated.

Thus, Baptists were a doctrinal people—holding to a definite doctrinal position.

It is by the standards of the Word of God that we seek to regulate our convictions and our conduct.

It is to the Word of God that we look for direction.

Unfortunately, our position as a doctrinal people may be threatened through the growing tension between biblical authority and Christian experience.

Many of those claiming to be Baptists, though appealing to their experiences as the foundation for their faith and practise, have cloaked their new-found religion in religious language—God talk.

They argue that the basis for faith and practise is the Bible … interpreted by Jesus.

This sounds quite orthodox, but in practise, these advocates of modernity mean to empty the Word of God of its authority.

Whenever someone appeals to Scripture, they say, “Yes, you feel that way about what is taught in the Bible, but I feel this way.”

Therefore, they have made their experience the final arbiter of faith and practise.

Worse yet, some of these Baptists distorted the very doctrines which are Baptist distinctives to justify their rejection of biblical authority.

The truths Baptists hold as distinctive were received in one of several ways.

Many of them have been forged in the fires of controversy.

Non-Baptists frequently forced Baptists to define themselves and to defend their unique beliefs.

In early colonial America, Baptists struggled to practise their faith according to their convictions against the governing authorities and other Christian denominations.

The Baptist belief in religious liberty and soul competency was in conflict with the concept of a state church brought by Anglicans, Presbyterians and Catholics to the New World.