Labels Are Not THAT Important

Was listening to a sermon today by a man called Mark Dever, one of the pastors of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. He was teaching from the passage where the disciples had tried to stop a man casting out demons in Jesus name and Jesus response was "whoever is not against us is for us." He went on to explain that we need to have the gospel at the centre of any unity we build, but for the glory of Christ we should unite wit anyone who is a Christian. Sadly an attitude of exclusivism is often a very clear example of pride and self righteousness in us. And a tendency for unity for the sake of unity is a sign of a lack of importance of Christ. AW Pink said "if you tune 100 piano's to a tuning fork, those piano's are automatically tuned to each other. In the same way, if every Christian fixes their eyes on Jesus, they will become more united than they ever would by looking at each other and trying to become united."

Mark Dever is a good example of this humble unity. He is involved in "Together for the gospel" uniting alongside the likes of John Piper and CJ Mahaney, but he is also good friends with Peter Masters in London. Pastor Masters is not CJ or Pipers biggest fan, infact he would speak against them a lot in articles, yet Mark seems to break that barrier to get on with them both. So maybe he is a man who understands what is talking about. He also comes from a much more critical background of the reformed camp.

This is an issue that matters to me. If I am guilty of sin in this area, it is the sin of desiring to glory in reformed theology to the extent that Gospel centred Arminians are excluded in my mind. Thankfully a friend of mine called Nathan has served as a practical measuring line for me. No matter how many times I have tried to show him God's sovereignty there is no way his view is changing. Yet he is a brother, and a brother who I respect and one who I love. His Godliness far out weighs me in my advantage on doctrine. Preaching a few weeks ago in a local Church, I was under so much conviction by the spirit of God to impress on the congregation that we cannot have unity around a vaccum, we have unity around Jesus! So this is something that has been playing on my mind for a fair while.

May love overcome minor doctrinal differences and may we live with our brothers and sisters in unity of purpose. May humility accompany our every theological discussion and a reliance on the word of God our heart beat.