Short Take 4: Resurgence Turned Divergence, Part 3

For people listening out there today who may not be Southern Baptists who just thinking about their own church. Maybe their own Christian school their own Christian college or whatever they're involved in who sees some drift taking place within their own organization or church.

How can this this story of potentially was taking place in the southern Baptist convention. I call it resurgence turning divergence. How can that be avoided for a church, a denomination and organization are really getting down to the specifics or an individual in their own life without.

That's a great question and that the bottom line is there no guarantees, no entity, no Christian organization ever drifts conservative will always drift liberal. We have devil. He hates us this world as opposed to us our own sin wants to be satisfied in those enemies, combined to draw us away from Christ. And so we need to be aware of that and it just comes down to taking God seriously taken his word seriously delete what he has to say. I think a very helpful tool for every Christian individually and certainly for churches and income Christian organization is confessional is a and by that I mean to adopt a biblical confession declare what you believe, clearly nail your colors to the mast and be as simple and succinct as you can be saying this is what we believe. Here we stand so that you're not always having to come back and asked the question what we think about this.

What you is Jesus really God really God's Trinity.

No mail your colors to the mask and be as explicit as you can be in, so that when the questions come up you're already pre-committed to the big issues and you're not having to rethink everything all the time but confessional is him is no guarantee, just look at the institutions you refer to the Ivy League and look at some of the Presbyterian denominations had Westminster confession of faith and so you can you can have good confessions and still drift but I think having a good confession and revisiting your commitment to it and maintaining the teachings of the Scripture that you confess and it can be a very healthy tool.

A second thing and this is where I believe conservative Christians get tripped up variously as we cannot afford to assume the gospel and by that I mean conservative Christians lose the gospel not by one night going to bed and waking up the next morning and say hey I no longer believe gospel but rather over months and years and maybe decades, assuming the gospel. Of course, wrong emeritus, of course, we all believe the gospel is above all, when in reality we started operating very subtly and over a period of time with assuming the truth of the gospel in our organization with our stated purposes. The final thing I would say is it ultimately we are dependent upon the spirit of God that we can have the best confession in the world. We can have the greatest intent in the world with the greatest care to make sure that we're dotting the I's and crossing the T's of gospel teaching, but apart from the spirit were going to drift apart and spirit week we can't do what needs to be done and we will be easy pickings for our enemies and so we've got to be people who cry out to God to plead with him to acknowledge our weakness, our dependence and look to him for the grace of the street that is needed for us to stand