Can one be called a Christian and not follow Christ?

Intro: Here is a funny story: A cowboy walks into a bar in Texas, orders three mugs of beer and sits in the back room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn. The bartender approaches and tells the cowboy, "You know, I'm a mug goes flat after I draw it. It would taste better if you bought one at a time." To cowboy replies, "Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in Australia, the other is in Dublin, and I'm in Texas. When we all left home, we promised that we'd drink this way too remember the days we drank together. So I drink one for each of my brothers and one for myself." The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and leaves it there. The cowboy becomes a regular in the bar, and always drinks the same way. He orders three mugs and drinks them in turn. One day though, he comes in and orders only two mugs. All the regulars take notice and fall silent. When he comes back to the bar, the bartender says, "I don't want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your loss." The cowboy looks quite puzzled for a moment, then a light dawns and he laughs. "Oh, no, everybody's just fine," he explains. "It's just that my wife and I joined the Baptist Church and I had to quit drinking. Hasn't affected my brothers though."
It is so easy to justify and rationalize what we want to do and still consider ourselves a follower of Christ.

Hypocrisy: Barna, the Christian research organization says in virtually every study they conduct representing thousands of interviews every year, born-again Christians fail to display much behavioral difference from regular people. Activities over the last 30 days, born again believers were just as likely to bet or gamble, to visit a pornographic website, to take something that did not belong to them, to consult a medium or psychic, to physically fight or abuse someone, to have consumed enough alcohol to be considered legally drunk, to have used an illegal, nonprescription drug, to have said something to someone that was not true, to have gotten back at someone for something he or she did, and to have said mean things behind another person's back.

In all, they found that 30% of born-again Christians admitted to at least one sexually inappropriate behavior in the past 30 days, compared with 35% of other Americans.

We say: Adventists are different. In some ways we are different. In my 30 some years as a pastor I have found many very sincere, committed, saintly Adventist people. But they are in the minority. The majority is no different than what Barna found.
This is terrible... but true.

Denominations: One thing man created. God may have been helping. The dictionary: denomination is an organization that gives a name to a class or group of people. In the Bible: Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles then Pharisees, Sadducees. Later more, then finally today... thousands of denominations.

Our pioneers were against them. Why were they formed?

Our church grew out of the Reformation. We accept the best biblical teachings of the reformers and put them together into one system of belief. That is why we are called the remnant church because we are most like the original. Revelation 14:12, No mention of a denomination... just the people.

Traditions and practices:
Worship Order, Luther who revised the Catholic order.
Communion table, Zwingli, also carried the bread and cup to the people in the pews, taken quarterly.
Centrality of preaching, Luther and Zwingli.
Dressing up for worship, 18th century.
Distinction between Laymen and clergy, medieval church (1Pet 2:9).
Pews? Pulpit? Rostrum holy? Quiet in church? 11 o'clock hour?

A study can teach us something. Start with the cage containing apes. In the cage hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the banana, spray all of the apes with cold water. After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result -- all of the apes are sprayed with water. Now turn off the cold water. If later, another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes will try to prevent it even though no water sprays on them. Next, remove an ape from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants it. To his horror, all the other apes attacked him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb stairs, he will be assaulted. Next remove another of the original apes and replace it with a new one. The new one goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, remove one of the original apes and replace it with a new one. The new one makes for the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in beating the new ape. After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes which had been sprayed with cold water are no longer a part of this primate committee. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because that's the way it's always been around here.
Sound familiar? Hopefully we are more intelligent than apes. But when it comes to traditions and practices that are not taught in the Bible and we take for granted, we are just dumb apes.
Understand: I am not saying what we do is wrong or bad, but it is not biblical, it is cultural and traditional, so it is not as important as following Jesus.
We can be so caught up in the tradition that we lose the spiritual meaning... worshiping God, encouraging one another, teaching the gospel and righteousness to the world.

Given as a Week of Prayer talk at University City SDA Church, Jan 19, 2010.