Significance

SIGNIFICANCE
Would you rather be useful or significant? God created all things to be useful. Only God has significance. We learned this in philosophy class at the seminary.
A chair does not have significance. It signifies that it is useful for something. No created thing has significance. Only God does. When man wants to be significant instead of useful, he makes him self a god. “God knows that when you eat of the tree you will be like God.” Marlon Brando said, “I could’a been somebody. I could’a been a contendah.” He wanted to be significant… like God.
Absolutizing:
There are many aspects of life and many aspects to the body of Christ. Some are ears, some are hands, some are feet, etc. The ear cannot say to the foot, “You should be like me.” That is absolutizing one aspect of the body. When man wants to be significant instead of useful, he tends to absolutize his particular aspect of life.
EXAMPLE: I knew a man that thrived on witnessing door to door. The church doubled in attendance from 200 to 400 in one year due to his efforts. But he thought everyone should be like him, and if you were not, well, you were just not right with God. He felt significant. He felt that he was an important “somebody.” That is called pride. God will reject that offering just as he rejected Cain’s.

ESSENTIALS, ETC.
St. Augustine said, “In essentials – unity; in non-essentials – liberty; in all things charity.” The essentials of the Christian faith are found in the doctrines listed in the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. We must all agree that the Bible is God’s infallible word and that Christ is the only way of salvation. Scripture demands that we divide when we do not agree on the essentials of the faith. We are told to “note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them” (Rom 16:17). We cannot be one with those, for example, who deny the doctrine of the Trinity.
The Scripture also demands that we do not divide over the non-essentials. That is petty, divisive, and factious. The Scriptures say a lot about this subject.
1Cor 1:10 Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
1Cor 3:3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?
1Cor 11:19 For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you.
Jude 1:19 These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.
Galatians lists dissension as one of the works of the flesh (5:19-20).
James 3:14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. 16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.

When we started this church we believed we had a unique message based on the historical church. I hope we did not leave the impression that everyone has to be like us or they are just not right with God. That would be an effort to be significant; that would be absolutizing one aspect of what God is doing in the world. I hope our motive is not to be significant, but rather to be useful.
It is said that Presbyterians divide over non-essential doctrines and that Baptists divide over the color of the carpet.
We do not require that all our members agree on every point of what we teach; we just require that we agree on the essentials. To do otherwise would be an attempt to be significant, and that would be an attempt to “be like God knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5).
That does not mean that non-essentials are not important. It just means we have no right to divide over them. We can each try with all our might to persuade one another of our convictions on non-essentials, but please let us not think that each is a devil for not agreeing. Let us never take the position that our interpretation of non-essentials is as infallible as the Scripture.