Main idea: Belonging to a Baptist church means being part of a community that is anchored for the future by the distinctions of our past.

Introduction: The text that was read for us earlier recalls Luke’s record of Jesus final words to his disciples before his ascension back into heaven. He tells those disciples that they are charged with declaring, "This message of repentance to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: 'There is forgiveness of sins for all who turn to me.' You are witnesses of all these things." (Luke 24:46-49) They would do as he said after they were empowered by the Holy Spirit. The question comes to mind how did they go from the small number who were those first witnesses to the millions upon millions of Christians as well as the 15.9 million people who call themselves Southern Baptists today? How did we as Baptists get from there to here? The answer is: by the anchors of our faith that have defined our distinctives.

The mighty Niagara River plummets some 180 feet at the American and Horseshoe Falls. Before the falls, there are violent, turbulent rapids. Farther upstream, however, where the river's current flows more gently, boats are able to navigate. Just before the Welland River empties into the Niagara, a pedestrian walkway spans the river. Posted on this bridge's pylons is a warning sign for all boaters: "Do you have an anchor?" followed by, "Do you know how to use it?" ( Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the editors of Leadership)

That could be a question we ask about our identity as a Baptist church as we move into the 21^st century. Do we have anchors that can keep us from disaster and spiritual extinction? What are the things that provide stability for us as a Baptist church amid all the changes that our culture as well as our particular denomination has seen especially in the latter part of the 20^th century? Why should we even have this discussion about identifying us as a Baptist church? Some of you will see this as a most irrelevant issue for facing your world. You may see my emphasis as an unnecessary issue because you are unconcerned about labels and names and care only to be Christian. Others may imagine that bringing this up only creates opportunity for division. Many see the issue of addressing distinctions between groups of Christians as arrogant, exclusive and intolerant.

While those concerns have some merit God did not put us as Christians through the last 2000 years of church history or the last 400 years as a people called Baptists for nothing. In spite of all the changes in our culture, the controversy in our denomination and the challenges facing us as FBC Jonesboro there is an overwhelming need that we stay anchored to those things from the past that give shape and function to our future. Anchors are those things that hold you together when everything else comes apart. When we think of the analogy of an anchor we think of being stuck of bound by the traditions of the past. Yet one of the principles of marine navigation is what is called "kedging off". "Kedging off" is when a ship that is turbulent waters allows a smaller ship to carry it’s anchor out beyond the ship as far as the chain will go. The smaller boat drops the anchor and the larger ship the maneuvers toward it. In the same way we as a church drop into the future those things that have been our anchors in the past and then navigate toward them. I share with you that regardless of your need, perspective or persuasion that there are anchors that we as Baptists must remember or we will cease to be a distinctive people of faith called Baptist. What are the anchors of our past that hold us together as a Baptist community of Christians?

The name Baptist is not the result of John the Baptist but really was a nickname applied to those who in England were known for fully immersing their followers. While early Baptist beginnings are unclear, we do know by 1594 that a group of English Christians broke from the Church of England, left England for Holland seeking to find a place in which they could worship freely and baptize by immersion those who trusted Christ as their Savior. Led by men like John Smyth this group would adopt practices that you and I take for granted—baptism and individually confessing Christ as Savior—which then placed them in direct conflict with their government and the church. In 1612 a man named Thomas Helwys would return to England and write a small booklet that contained the sentence, "Christ only is the king and lawgiver of the church and conscience." It would be for this principle that he would be imprisoned and would cost him his life in 1616.

It is this conviction that no human authority, human coercion, human domination or human government stands between a person and God that defines the anchor of who we are as Baptists. To be "Baptist" is to have the freedom to believe in a personal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and freely be a member of a church that seeks to follow Christ in both faith and practice. We believe that all people are free to express their relationship to God in their own way. It doesn’t mean that all people go to heaven or that their religious expression is right. It means you have the freedom to choose Christ or reject Him without the influence or control of any human involvement.

What are the anchors of the past that we must use to navigate toward the future?

Paul wrote to Timothy and said, "For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Tim. 2:5). This verse tells us that when it comes to the soul of a person that there is only one who has any authority over me spiritually and that is Jesus Christ. The word "authority" means, "possessing the power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior" (Webster’s). This reminds us of the absolute sovereignty of God. God is God. When the scripture says that there is only one, Jesus Christ that unites a person to God it means that there is no human who has the right to influence, rule, or command my thoughts, opinions or behavior as I relate to God. That even means that Jesus Christ is the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted.

The implications of this principle are very important. It means that God saves me through my faith in the death of Christ to forgive my sins without any human agency. No priest or preacher, no church ordinance like baptism or the Lord’s Supper is required for my salvation. We hold and believe that as an individual you are competent to approach God by the leading of the Holy Spirit and the sacrifice of Jesus. We practice baptism by immersion as a way of saying the individuals themselves come to trust Christ. An infant cannot do that so we do not immerse or baptize infants. We don’t have priests or a priesthood for we believe no one needs to approach God for someone else when Jesus has already done that.

It is imperative that we remember that no human authority has the control or power over my soul to enable me to know God. When it comes down to the bottom line it is Jesus Christ and only Jesus Christ that is necessary to stand between God and myself. Any doctrine, instruction, creed or statement to the contrary is for a Baptist an attempt to uproot this anchor making us vulnerable to the opinions of people. As the winds and waves of human desires beat against us we must stay anchored to our soul being free from all human authority!

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness…" As Paul penned these words he was declaring immediately that all Scripture, whether the Old Testament documents or those that now we call the New Testament, are the words of God. Therefore, because they are the words of God, breathed by Him, they are in and of themselves free from the restraint, enforcement or threat by any human. Paul said that the Scripture is useful for teaching, reproving, correcting and training. One translation says that the Scripture teaches us what is true and makes us realize what is wrong in our lives. "It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right" (II Tim. 3:16 NLT). Friends, it straightens us out, we do not straighten it out!

As a Baptist I believe so strongly in the authority of Scripture alone that to try to defend the Bible is about as necessary as explaining that fire is hot. That is why as Baptists we are a Bible people. That is why there are Bibles in your pew. That is why we believe in studying the Bible in Sunday School. That is why our hymns, songs and choruses are to be based in Scripture. That is why the pulpit is in the center—not because the preacher is the focus but because the Bible is the focus. That is why as Baptists we must resist adamantly the continued encroachment of forced interpretation of Scripture by any other Baptist or any other Christian. Our Baptist heritage, both in England and the early days of this nation, is filled with accounts of persecution because they interpreted the Bible to teach freedom from human coercion of interpretation. The freedom for you to allow Holy Spirit to teach you God’s word is a freedom we are always in danger of losing! Jesus Christ is Lord over the Scripture and our conscience! The Bible being free from human coercion that is an anchor we as Baptists cannot allow to be severed.

As Paul wrote to the Ephesians he said, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all" (Ephesians 4:4-6). That last sentence makes our point. God and God alone is over all, and all includes our church. That means that as a church we are free from the supremacy, preeminence or mastery of any human or any human organization save Jesus Christ alone. It means that as a Baptist church we cherish the right to be self-governing and self-determining about how we do what God wants us to do. It means we choose the affiliations with those groups, be they Baptist or otherwise, that reflect what we believe. It means that no one save God alone has the right to tell another Baptist church what to do.

The connection we as a Baptist church have with other Baptists is often called a "rope of sand". It means that we are connected to each other but not bound to the other. Last year our national convention adopted a statement of faith called the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. It was a revision of the Baptist Faith and Message of 1963. As FBC Jonesboro we have chosen to stick with the 1963 statement because it best expresses what we as FBC Jonesboro value most. Our state convention had the opportunity to vote to adopt the BF&M 2000 but voted overwhelmingly to use the 1963 BF&M as our state conventions statement of faith. The roof didn’t cave in, the sun came up the next day and we are all still here. We just expressed the fact that no human controls a Baptist church. Our Baptist forefathers suffered at length over this freedom and we are fools to allow it to be threatened by anyone. We are anchored by our freedom as a church to obey God without any other human’s domination.

In these dramatic verses Peter and the apostles are being persecuted for their following Jesus Christ. A religious authority is challenging them. Yet their response applies to civil authority equally, "We must obey God rather than men." That is our ultimate confession as Baptists. Issues of separation of church and state have always anchored us as Baptists. We are a people who are anchored by the belief that our soul is free, our Bible is free, our church is free and that means we must have the freedom to express those principles as we feel God has called us. To its credit the 2000 BF&M retains the language of the 1963 statement that says, "The church should not resort to civil power to carry on its work. The state has no right to impose taxes for the support of any form of religion". While it is obvious that "faith based initiatives" for social programs work better than government ones we as Baptists should resist trusting tax dollars to do the social work to which God has called us. Wherever there is a dollar offered there is a string attached.

It is this very freedom that we as Baptists in this country have given our blood. In the early days of this nation neither others nor we were free to meet and worship as they chose. One such person was Obadiah Holmes. Obadiah Holmes (1607-1682) apparently left England to escape religious persecution, but found more of the same in America. He was active among Baptists in Newport, Rhode Island, and served for about twelve years as pastor of that church. Holmes was noted for courage under persecution, for spiritual depth, and for doctrinal stability despite his lack of academic credentials. He was however brutally whipped in Boston in 1651 for his denial of doctrine infant baptism and for preaching baptism by immersion and other doctrines we readily affirm today. After being beaten Holmes said that God was so gracious to him that, " when he had loosed me from the Post, having joyfulness in my heart, and cheerfulness in my countenance, as the Spectators observed, I told the Magistrates, you have struck me as with Roses…"

You see whenever we as a church baptize a person into the Body of Christ and this church we stand with baptized brothers and sisters who purchased with their blood this freedom. Because it cost so much to be free how can we entertain the idea of any tie to our government other than that of prayer and participation that is offered to every other citizen. As Baptists we must watch to see that the anchor of our faith as Baptists remains free from every form of human government.

Conclusion: You see the future is always found in the past. The key for us is to make the past current. It’s more important that we constant than new. Leonard Sweet says, "God’s dream is not a church that is good as new but good as old." The anchors for our church in the future are found in our past. What are those anchors? Our soul is free from human authority, our Bible is free from human coercion, our church is free from human domination and our faith is free from human government. Those are the anchors of the past we cast into the future to guide us.

When our youth choir goes to Washington, D.C. this summer I’m sure some will see in the Smithsonian Museum of American History the flag that flew over Fort McHenry when Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner in 1814. The original flag measured 42 feet by 30 feet. It was the immense size of the flag that allowed Key to see it from his position ten miles out to sea, following a night of gunfire.

The means by which a flag that large could fly on a pole 189 feet in the air is on display at Fort McHenry on Baltimore's inner harbor. There in one of the barracks are two oak timbers, 8 foot by 8 foot, joined as a cross. National Park Service personnel discovered this cross-shaped support near the entrance to Fort McHenry in 1958 buried 9 feet in the ground. Not only did the crosspiece help rangers locate the original site from which the Star Spangled Banner flew, it answered the mystery of how such a large flag could fly in stormy weather without snapping the pole. This unseen wooden device provided the anchor for the symbol of our national freedom.

Regardless of the battles or the winds of change, we as Baptists will always be anchored by the Cross.

Sunday, April 22, 2001

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org