A Sacred Trust: Sermons on the Distinctive Beliefs of Baptists

By Dean Anderson

Just what makes a Baptist, a Baptist? What are the beliefs that set Baptists apart from other Christian churches, and are they of any real importance for the local church member who just wants to follow Jesus?

Four centuries of Baptists have found those distinctive beliefs to be the command of Jesus in the Scripture, have expressed their love for him by holding and practicingthem, and have passed that sacred trustdown to us. A church which fails to know and value its Baptist identity becomes subject to error and false teaching and loses the heritage for which its Baptist ancestors were willing to suffer and die.

The sermons in this book provide a helpful introduction to the beliefs which distinguish Baptists from other Christian groups and churches, and help readers to consider those beliefs in their proper level of importance.

Extensive guides to additional resources in the distinctive beliefs of Baptists and in doctrinal preaching are provided for those desiringfurther study and for pastors interested in developingsimilar messages. Includes endorsements from Chuck Kelley and Lloyd Harsch of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Fisher Humphreys of Beeson Divinity School.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Aug 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490889993

Dean Anderson

Dean Anderson is a graduate of Montgomery Bell Academy, Vanderbilt University (B.A.), and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div., D. Min.). He has served at the Baptist Sunday School Board and the First Baptist Church of Joelton, Tennessee. Since 1999 he has been Pastor of Trenton Baptist Church, Trenton, Kentucky, where he resides with wife Cindy and daughters Cara and Abby.

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A SACRED TRUST:

Sermons on the Distinctive Beliefs

of Baptists

Dean Anderson

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Copyright © 2015 Dean Anderson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible Copyright 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission Holman Christian Standard Bible, Holman CSB, and HCSB are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-8997-9 (sc)

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WestBow Press rev. date: 08/03/2015

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1 Identifying The Distinctive Beliefs

Chapter 2 Developing The Sermons

Chapter 3 Sermon 1: The Importance Of Our Distinctive Beliefs

Chapter 4 Sermon 2: Biblical Authority

Chapter 5 Sermon 3: Soul Competency

Chapter 6 Sermon 4: Regenerate Church Membership

Chapter 7 Sermon 5: Congregational Polity

Chapter 8 Sermon 6: A Symbolic View Of Baptism

Chapter 9 Sermon 7: Religious Liberty

Chapter 10 Sermon 8: The Place Of Our Distinctive Beliefs

Appendix 1: An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Works Concerning the Distinctive Doctrinal Beliefs of Baptists

Appendix 2: An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Works Concerning Doctrinal Preaching

My people, hear my instruction;

listen to what I say.

I will declare wise sayings;

I will speak mysteries from the past—

things we have heard and known

and that our fathers have passed down to us.

We must not hide them from their children,

but must tell a future generation

the praises of the Lord,

His might, and the wonderful works

He has performed.

—Psalm 78: 1—4 (HCSB)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THE IDEAS FOR THIS SERMON SERIES

and subsequent book originated from my Doctor of Ministry studies at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The professors at NOBTS during my M.Div. and D.Min. years (1981-1984; 2006-2009) are high on my list of heroes of the faith; they have been friends, role models, and teachers. I cannot imagine my life or my ministry without that blessed school in New Orleans. Dr. Reggie Ogea helped to shape the initial design of this work and Dr. Lloyd Harsch, my faculty mentor, offered invaluable guidance throughout the process.

The Southern Baptist Library and Historical Archives in Nashville provided the majority of the resources that made this work possible; the SBLHA offers an endless treasure trove of material and the staff is exceptionally knowledgeable, kind, and willing to help. The Vanderbilt University Divinity School Library also made available several helpful works.

I will be eternally grateful to God for the First Baptist Church of Joelton, Tennessee, and for Trenton Baptist Church of Trenton, Kentucky. The saints at Joelton have nurtured my faith from the nursery into adulthood. I have had six pastors at Joelton: Truman Durham, W.D. Thomason, Murray Mathis, J.B. Miller, Bob Old, and David Royalty. The Lord has used each of the six in unique and vitally important ways in my life, and when he called me to the pastoral ministry, I knew what a powerful and wonderful call that is because of their examples. I am also especially thankful for Milton Knox, a Joelton Youth Minister who took time to make friends with a teenage boy drifting away from the Lord and the church. We have been friends ever since.

It has been my great joy to serve as the Pastor at Trenton since March of 1999. After ten years I continue to be inspired by their love and support, as well as their deep desire to know, worship and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. At those gatherings where pastors like to let off steam and trade horror stories, I rarely have anything to contribute.

Fisher Humphreys, Eugene Hall, and Cliff Tharp each evaluated portions of this work and provided helpful guidance. Their suggestions made the sermon series far more effective and the involvement of each one was deeply meaningful for me on a personal level.

Danny Ashley, Jim Parnell, Bruce Rector, Clay King, Charles Sullivant, Robert and Nona Anderson, Tumpy Anderson, Ken Anderson, Lon and Ruth Anderson, Buford and Becky Blackwell, Elizabeth Polston, Bob and Dorothy Polston, Jeff and Brittney Adkins, Mark Boyd, Ryan Boyd, Wade and Cindy Blackwell, and a host of other friends and family members have supported, encouraged, and inspired me in more ways than they will ever know.

My parents and sister, Dean and Sarah Anderson and Lynda Boyd, have provided me with some of the most valuable gifts in life: a happy home in which to grow up, a foundation in the faith, and the best education that can be had. They have helped to instill in me a knowledge of the Lord, a commitment to the church, and a love of reading and learning. For them and for those gifts I will also forever be grateful. My mother has exemplified selfless, unending love, sincere faith, and a positive outlook.

Charles Spurgeon once described his wife as God’s best earthly gift. I know just what he meant. Among God’s earthly gifts, my wife, Cindy, is at the top of my list and next to her are our daughters, Cara and Abby. I am thankful to God for their love and support, which have not only helped make my ministry and this book possible, but daily provide me with a rich and wonderful life.

Above all, I am grateful to Jesus Christ, the Lord of my life and the source of every good and perfect gift. He saved me at the age of 9, called me into ministry at the age of 17, causes my cup to overflow daily, and promises an eternity before him that I look forward to every day. I pray that in some small way this work might point people to him as they consider the heritage and identity of Baptists. He alone is worthy of all attention, worthy of all glory and honor.

Any truth reflected in the following pages and any good that comes from it, is due to those listed above. Any misstatement or error is attributable to me and me alone.

INTRODUCTION

WHAT MAKES A BAPTIST A BAPTIST?

What are the beliefs that set Baptists apart from other Christian churches and denominations, and are those distinctions of any real importance for the local church member who just wants to follow Jesus?

Baptist statesmen of earlier generations had strong convictions about the nature and importance of the beliefs that distinguish Baptists. E. Y. Mullins, for example, refers to Baptist principles as a sacred trust and states that a member of a Baptist church ought to know what Baptists believe, what they are trying to do, and how they are trying to do it. This knowledge ought to become the keen edge of his efficiency as a church member.¹ John A. Broadus declares in his works that the distinctive doctrinal beliefs of Baptists are a part of the ‘all things’ which Jesus commanded, and asks, therefore, what shall hinder us, and what could excuse us, from observing them ourselves and teaching them to others?²

For those who founded what was to grow into the Baptist churches of today, those beliefs were of such importance that they were willing to separate from the established churches of their time at grave personal cost. Baptists in the centuries since have willingly undergone persecution, risking torture and death in order to practice and perpetuate the sacred trust of their doctrines. Their faithfulness to those doctrines was a means of obeying their Lord in all matters and bequeathing to future generations the truths of the faith that had been entrusted to them.

Although those earlier generations treasured the Baptist distinctions as a means of faithfulness to the Lord and suffered to entrust them to ages to come, relatively few contemporary Baptists seem to have any knowledge of the beliefs that distinguish them from other Christians. The congregation that I serve seems typical of many in that respect. Much of the church’s growth over the last ten years has resulted from new members coming from churches and denominations other than Baptist, and the majority of those from other backgrounds tend to cite factors such as programs for children, the church’s spirit of unity and fellowship, or a conservative stance on social issues as reasons for their attraction. Few have exhibited any awareness of the doctrinal beliefs characteristic of and distinctive to Baptists. Even those life-long Baptists in the congregation have evidenced little knowledge of the doctrinal beliefs that distinguish Baptists. Deacons have stated that they could not identify the doctrines that set Baptists apart from others. Long-time members would occasionally offer suggestions such as encouraging further growth by eliminating the requirement that those from other denominations be baptized in order to become church members. Such suggestions manifest a lack of knowledge of the doctrines that are a vital part of the Baptist heritage and identity and a willingness to barter those doctrines for the sake of larger numbers or some perceived short-term goal.

The weakening sense of Baptist identity is not unique to my congregation. Albert Mohler observes that For too many years, Baptists in general, and Southern Baptists in particular, have allowed theological and doctrinal neglect to erode the very foundation of our identity.³ Others agree with Mohler’s assessment; Thomas White, for example, states that theological denigration has affected many Baptist churches.⁴

The loss of Baptist identity that results from this neglect of doctrine has serious implications for the life and work of the church. Concerning Baptists, Stanton Norman asserts that The abandonment of theological convictions will devastate the vitality and mission of our churches. The lack of emphasis on doctrine … will in fact result in the ultimate demise of the church.⁵ Baptists have a general understanding, resulting from our traditional emphasis on biblical teaching, that the doctrines distinctive of our beliefs form the finest expression of the Christian faith. A church that fails to know and value its Baptist identity becomes subject to error and false teaching and loses that heritage for which its Baptist ancestors were willing to suffer and die.

I undertook the sermon series in the following chapters in order to enhance my own understanding as well as that of my congregation. I began with research in the field of distinctive Baptist beliefs in order to identify the specific beliefs that distinguish Baptists from other Christians. The process of identifying and defining those doctrinal distinctives is related in chapter 1. Once I had developed the list of distinctive beliefs, I conducted a study of resources on doctrinal preaching in order to develop and preach sermons that would communicate those beliefs effectively to the congregation. The insight gained from that study and the goals I sought to accomplish in the development of the sermons are described in chapter 2. Those first two chapters provide important background information and should be of particular interest to pastors interested in preaching a similar series; readers who seek only a general introduction to the Baptist distinctives, however, may wish to move directly to the sermons, which comprise chapters 3 through 10. The series consists of eight messages: an introductory sermon, one sermon on each of six distinctive Baptist beliefs, and a concluding sermon. The appendices provide annotated bibliographies to aid those who wish to do further study in the distinctive beliefs or in doctrinal preaching; they should also be helpful to pastors interested in developing their own sermons.

The study that culminated in this sermon series has been among the most rewarding not only in my ministry as a pastor but in my life as a Christian. Through studying and preaching the Baptist distinctives, I have come to cherish more dearly my heritage as a Baptist and the sacred trust of Baptist doctrinal beliefs. I have also grown toward the goal of developing and expressing the mind of Christ in my own life. The response of the congregation, moreover, was overwhelmingly positive. During the eight Sundays of the series, noticeably larger than usual numbers of worshipers lined up to express thanks for the sermons or interest in the subject. Others called or visited the pastor’s study to discuss Baptist heritage and identity and share excitement at the opportunity to increase their knowledge. Requests for the Sunday services on tape increased well beyond the usual numbers, and evaluations conducted after the series concluded showed strongly positive results. Typical comments from church members included I’ve learned a lot, Now I’m armed with answers, and Now when somebody asks why I’m Baptist, I can say more than I was raised in a Baptist church.’ Now I can explain biblically what I believe."

This book is offered as a help to those who wonder just what beliefs do set Baptists apart from other Christians, and in the hope that it might encourage other pastors to undertake the study and development of their own messages on the distinctive Baptist beliefs.

Charles Spurgeon was gloriously converted to Christ at the age of 15, and soon after became convinced from his study of the Bible that he should join a Baptist church. His mother remarked one day, Son, I have often prayed for your conversion, but I never thought you would become a Baptist. Spurgeon replied with a smile, Mother, that shows you that God has not only answered your prayers but has done exceedingly abundantly above all you asked or thought.⁶ Generations of Christians