This morning we listened to a sermon from Pastor Larry Osborne on Romans 16:17 – 20. Christianity is a team sport. Stay away from those who cause division and place obstacles in your way. It is all about Jesus, he is the way of salvation, there is no other way to God, and there is no other thing you have to do to get to God.
This letter was written to the Romans, and some of the obstacles that were being placed in the way of those who wanted to become Jesus Followers, was that they must first become good Jews (circumcised, diet etc.) as result there was division being created.
Spiritual truth is no different than any other truth. It is either true or not, in other words, it is not true just because you sincerely believe it. Sincerity does not turn a lie into truth in any realm. “All roads lead to God, as long as you sincerely believe it.” THIS IS NOT TRUE.
Some truth is more important than others. A cop chasing as suspect and hears the suspect is wearing a blue shirt and has blue eyes. This is important. Then he hears the suspect is armed. This is more important.
One biblical truth
Open Handed Truth: not worth fighting and dividing over. (OHT)
Close Fisted Truth: things we hold very tightly and worth fighting over. (CFT)
OHT : either unclear or secondary (disputable)
Whether or not a Christian should eat meat offered to an idol, or observe the Jewish sabbath. No specific direction in the Bible on either of these.
Current:
Baptism, no specific direction on when or how to do baptism.
When is Jesus going to return beginning, middle or end of Tribulation.
The role of men and women in the body of Christ.
Something does not become CFT until eternal destructive or spiritually destructive or just wrong.
Will believing this falsehood prevent you from getting to heaven, or total mess up your life.
If it just makes you wrong, I may look for a way to show you the truth, but I am not going to fight over it.
1 Corinthians’s 11:17–19 This is stupid church fights. Lot’s of sarcasm here. This is all about OHT vs CFT.
Two kinds of things worth dividing over,
- Anything that keeps people out of heaven.
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NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME. John 14:7,
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THERE IS NO OTHER NAME GIVEN UNDER HEAVEN BY WHICH YOU CAN BE SAVED. Acts 4:12
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BUT EVEN IF AN ANGEL FROM HEAVEN SHOULD TEACH A GOSPEL FROM THE ONE WE PREACH TO YOU, LET HIM BE UNDER GODS CURSE. Galatians 1:8-9
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Anything that presents a different Jesus or God.
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Cults: world religions are not cults, a cult is a group of people who claim to be Christian, but they use a different Jesus. J.W. Or Mormons are examples of this.
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They have a message of a different Christ. They require following Jesus and their special rules. They present that only a small group of people will be saved.
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They present that Jesus is one of the emanations of God, not his ONLY begotten son. In the case of the Mormons, you too can become a God. This is not biblical, and is a truth worth fighting over.
Avoid anyone who makes it harder to come to Jesus, than what it says in the Bible. Do not raise the bar and make it harder for anyone. Some are further along the path than others, don’t make someone else meet all the things that you do to show that are Christians. This is very easy to do. When we start expecting others to do what mature Christians do, and pointing out that this is “what I do” and if you don’t do it, then you aren’t really a Christian then are you? This tends to make us arrogant.
Avoid those who promote speculative arguments about what is in the Bible that are not there. “Deep Teaching” is not “DEEP” rather it is imagination. Reading things into what it says in the Bible. 1 Timothy 1:3-7.
Avoid (Jude vs 3&4) those who condone sin. Turning grace into a license to sin.
Romans was written about Close Fisted Truths that were keeping people from following Christ. Not about Open Fisted Truths that are disputable or insignificant.
After the message, I worked on repairing the porthole/window in the forward heard. This is a small square hatch/window that opens directly up. It is a Lewmar porthole, and has two rivets that hold part of the hinge to the opening to give it some resistance to movement. I got the old rivets out, and have a manual rivet gun. I even have some rivets. Unfortunately, this application calls for them to be extra long. I don’t have those. So, I have to wait until I can get the right ones. As the ones I have did not work.
Renee’ made coleslaw and hummus. I went out and saw that there is very little activity in the bay, a few pangas going back and forth but not much else. We plan to go across the bay after lunch.
After a ride around the bay in the dinghy we went into town and stopped at the KuKu-Kuku the local place on the beach. We met about a dozen other sailors. Had some beers and then back to the boat.