"REMEMBERING WHO WE ARE"
Galatians 5:1
"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."
There is a powerful opening scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan that is for me especially touching. For those of you that may not know Saving Private Ryan is the fictional account of a rescue of one soldier during WWII whose brothers had been killed on the same day. The story begins on D-Day and continues through the first days after the invasion. The scene begins with an American flag waving in the breeze, then shows a man who appears to be in his 70’s walking quickly along a shade-covered sidewalk. His family is behind him—a wife, daughters, sons and grandchildren. It’s as if he is looking for something anxiously. He turns off the sidewalk and with his back to the camera you see what he sees—rows and rows of graves marked with white crosses. Your throat tightens because you realize he was returning to a cemetery in France near the beaches of Normandy.
He searches among the stones looking for the grave of one man, Captain John Miller, the man sent to save his life. When he finds the cross with Capt. John Miller’s name on it he falls on his knees and begins to weep. He has not forgotten the sacrifice nor the significance of what this man gave. What I saw in that powerful scene was the painful reminder of what my generation has so easily forgotten—others gave so I could be free.
That sentiment is reflected in Tom Brokaw’s book The Greatest Generation. Brokaw recognizes that failure of appreciation when he returned to the beaches of Normandy in France for the 50th anniversary of the D-Day Invasion. He thought he was getting a nice assignment with his wife, instead what he got was something far greater. "Instead, I underwent a life-changing experience. As I walked the beaches with the American veterans who had landed there and now returned for this anniversary, men in their sixties and seventies, and listened to their stories in the cafes and inns, I was deeply moved and profoundly grateful for all they had done. I realized that they had been all around me as I was growing up and that I had failed to appreciate what they had been through and what they had accomplished."
It is with that sentiment that I want to address today a call to remember the distinctives of who we are as a Baptist church. I realize that a message such as this does not immediately identify with a need you may feel you have. You face battles of all kinds and desire a word from this place about your problem. You may see my emphasis as an unnecessary issue for 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. I share with you that regardless of your need, perspective or persuasion that there are things that we as Baptists must remember or we will cease to be a distinctive people of faith called Baptist. For to be Baptist is to be free. Forgetting what it means to be Baptist is forgetting what it means to be free.
You see the concern and issue of freedom has always been at the heart of who we are as Baptists. That passion for freedom finds its soul in the words of Paul writing to the Galatians. He wrote: "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." The Galatian Christians were under the influence of Jewish Christians who felt that a non-Jew could not fully be Christian unless they adhered to the more narrow laws, regulations and rituals that the Jews followed. In other words, it would be the same as someone telling you you are not fully Christian if you don’t eat only organic food from a health food store, pierce your ear and get a tattoo. You get the idea.
Paul vehemently admonishes them that Jesus’ death on the cross was to secure their spiritual freedom. That sacrifice was so great that it is necessary that they guard and protect that freedom continually. Failure to do so only creates further restrictions on your spiritual freedom. I like the way the New Living Translation says it: "So Christ has really set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law" (Galatians 5:1 NLT).
It was that principle of spiritual freedom that became the soul of those we call Baptist. While early Baptist beginnings are unclear, we do know by 1594 that a group of English Christians 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 is the heart of who we are as Baptists. 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.
That heart beat for freedom finds its expression in four things that we must remember about what it means to be Baptist:
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). 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.
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 resolution to the contrary is for a Baptist a violation of this freedom. "Christ has really set us free. Now make sure that…" Your soul stays free from all human authority!
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. 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. 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!
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. 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 in danger of losing! Jesus Christ is Lord over the Scripture and our conscience! The Bible is free from human coercion that is a principle we as Baptists must remember.
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.
Once again our most recent convention in Atlanta chose to question Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock for their decision to not publically dismiss President Clinton from its membership. Somehow hoping to force a dismissal by raising the issue. That body has the right to make its decision but Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock is free to do as it chooses and no other person, association, church or convention has the mastery over them or over us. Our Baptist forefathers suffered at length over this freedom and we are fools to allow it to be threatened by anyone. We are free 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. They are being challenged by a religious authority. Yet their response applies to civil authority equally, "We must obey God rather than men." That is our ultimate confession as Baptists. We are a people who believe 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.
It is this very freedom that we as Baptists in this country have given our blood. In the early days of this nation we nor others 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 brutally whipped in Boston in 1651 for his denial of infant baptism.
He also preached baptizing by immersion and other doctrines we readily affirm today. In his own words Holmes described the whipping: "And as the man began to lay the strokes upon my back, I said to the people, though my Flesh should fail, and my Spirit should fail, yet God would not fail; so it pleased the Lord to come in, and so to fill my heart and tongue as a vessel full, and with an audible voice I broke forth, praying unto the Lord not to lay this Sin to their charge, and telling the people, That now I found he did not fail me, and therefore now I should trust him for ever who failed me not; for in truth, as the strokes fell upon me, I had such a spiritual manifestation of Gods presence, as the like thereto I never had, nor felt, or can with fleshly tongue express, and the outward pain was so removed from me, that indeed I am not able to declare it to you, it was so easy to me, that I could well bear it,…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…"
The baptism we observed this morning is something that has been purchased with the blood of Baptists. 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. There is a wall of separation between the church and the state. As Baptists we must watch to see that the wall of freedom and liberty is kept strong. Our faith as Baptists must remain free from every form of human government.
Conclusion: The conclusion of the movie "Saving Private Ryan" provides a powerful point for this message. A battle with the German forces ensues as the American forces seek to keep a bridge in American hands. The last man to die in the battle is Capt. John Miller. As he dies he reaches up to Private Ryan and with his dying breath says, "Earn this! Earn it." The movie closes with the now 70 + year old Private Ryan weeping in the arms of his wife saying, "Tell me I’ve earned this. Tell me I am good." He then stands and salutes the one who came to save him.
As Baptist Christians we have been given a heritage of freedom. That freedom has been purchased with the lives of men and women over hundreds of years. If those who have gone before us could speak they would say to us today, "Earn this! Earn it.!" When others are choosing to drop the word "Baptist" from the name of their church, may we raise the name not for the sake of division but for the purpose of distinction. For to be Baptist is to be free—a soul free from human authority, a Bible free from human coercion, a church free from human domination and a faith free from human government. Is it too late? No, it is never too late to be free.
"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).
Sunday, July 4, 1999
Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor
First Baptist Church
Jonesboro, Arkansas