Right at their house There's a few verses I want to look at before we get to the message go to first Corinthians chapter 11 Which is a good chapter to study about the Lord's Supper But remember what Paul he was concerned for the church and His concern was unity and I think it's throughout the New Testament and First Corinthians 11. Verse 18. He says, for first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you that they which are approved may be made may be made manifest among you. And so he's concerned there about divisions. Go to chapter one. Remember, the whole epistle. Is dealing with this first Corinthians chapter one. Verse 10. Now, I beseech 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'd be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. And then he goes on, as you remember, well, read verse 11, for it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. And then he goes on to what was going on in the church. between members or attitudes. So let's go over to Ephesians chapter four. And this is a unity chapter. Unity. Verse one, Ephesians chapter four, beginning at verse one, this will kind of be our text for tonight. But let's strive for unity in the church, unity in the body. And I think Paul addresses here some of the areas which we need to look at among us, like any church body, so that there would be the unity that he wants. It says in verse 1, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. With all lowliness and meekness and with long-suffering forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, even as you are called, in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and father of all who is above all and through all and in you all and then he goes on to the gifts Okay, the gifts that are given and we know how it goes through that um Jump down to verse 12. We're not going to deal with all the gifts or go to verse 11. It says any gave some apostles some profits. We believe they are foundational gifts. They are no longer needed today in the church and they have ceased to exist. There are no apostles and prophets. But now we have evangelists and some pastor teachers, pastor and teachers. And we look at verse 12 for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. What's the purpose of all this? It says in verse 13, till we all come in the unity of the faith, right? and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." So, the whole purpose is unity. Why are we serving? Why are we working together? Why are we receiving the Word of God every week? It's for the purpose of unity. We need to have unity in the body. And I think that's what Paul said over there to the Corinthians that we ought to have the same speech the same mind the same Beliefs The same judgment he said, you know and This is what he's dealing over here in chapter 4. And so I would like to Look at some of this tonight nothing in Very much depth because of time sake but look at verse number two Well number one it says we need to walk worthy of the vocation where with you we are called and what is that? That's the salvation which god has given us We need to be worthy of him in our walk in our daily life and it's a it's a Wonderful salvation That he's provided for us the sacrifice of our lord and savior. We need to be worthy of that And I think he talks about um Chapter five everything that jesus did for the church. He died. He sanctifies the church He gave his life for it. And that's what paul is talking about here is our lives now in relation to What jesus did for us walk worthy of that? And then he gives us some attitudes, and this is where I think all of us need to step back and examine our hearts. Are we maintaining the right attitudes one toward another in the church? It says, with all lowliness and meekness and long-suffering, forbearing one another in love. And so those attitudes are the opposite of our flesh, right? We're not gonna naturally produce Lowliness and meekness long-suffering and forbearing one another having that patience and forgiveness one with one another This is something that we receive from god. Amen. This is something we receive from the spirit If you go to galatians 5 it's clear. A lot of these are mentioned even in the fruit of the spirit So this is a spiritual walk. These are spiritual attitudes that we need to maintain one toward another if we are gonna have unity in the church. So God wants us to look at that, and then he says, verse three, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. This is what the spirit produces, brethren, peace, amen? Peace if we are keeping the unity, we're gonna have the peace of god We're gonna have peace one with another but it says endeavoring to keep that peace We have to work at it That's what the word Endeavor now this peace or this unity. I'm, sorry if this unity is Produced by the spirit of god It says the unity of the spirit So we have to guard what he produces in us. We need to get out of the way, amen, of what the spirit wants to do. And the way we get in the way is having the wrong attitudes one toward another or something in our heart. That's the wrong thoughts, the wrong attitudes and not being able to be patient, not being able to be forgiving one with another. That's going to hinder the work of the Spirit in our midst. Isn't that what was happening over there in Corinth? They they had a lot of divisions and the Spirit of God couldn't work in their church the Spirit of God couldn't use them and that's in that saying he says you're walking as men you are being Carnal you're being fleshly because of these attitudes among you. This isn't this isn't work worthy of Jesus It's not walking worthy of that calling. He wants us to walk worthy of the salvation which he gave us and Now there's something interesting here, and this is where I want to kind of go into it a little bit. And you've probably heard this before, but that unity of the Spirit that He produces, the unity that the Spirit produces is based on doctrine. We can't have unity if we don't have the same doctrine. It goes into that list of doctrine. We'll see that in a moment. But the ecumenical movement, that's the movement that says, hey, you don't need to worry about doctrine. We just need to unite and love one another. We're all together. That's why you got This false doctrine of the universal church and universal body out here We're all in one big body one big family and you know, we just need to Drop the guard there and just love everybody. No, it doesn't matter what they believe That's not what the spirit says That's not the unity that the spirit produces I know What I am preaching or what we stand for isn't going to be popular, but it's right. It's right. Amos 3.3, that's a great verse, says, Can two walk together except they be agreed? Isn't that such a principle? How are we going to walk together in unity if we don't have agreement? So when we look at the bible even jesus when he was walking here on the earth that fellowship that he had with the disciples Was uh produced or it was the unity that was produced there that the spirit produced is based on truth Truth of god's word. It's not based on feelings Isn't that where a lot of people they they want as we heard this morning. I thought Great. Great. I love, I love the preaching. That was good stuff because we people want to be, uh, being led by their feelings, not by truth. And we don't need so much to feel good in church, especially when God is working. Amen. When God's working in us, how are you going to, feel. You're going to have some conviction. You're going to feel some way that God wants you to do something. You know, that's what the if the Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, that doesn't mean that we're always going to feel good when we receive the Bible. We're going to have some conviction. We're going to have God dealing with us as we are confronted with truth. So brethren, we are to guard we are to guard that unity of the Spirit As taught in the Word of God, it is our faith that unites us. It's our common belief in Christ, our common belief in these seven doctrines right here that unites us. Charles Spurgeon said, unity at the expense of truth is treason. You know, today, people don't have that attitude. I do, and I hope you do, because this is the spirit by which We are to labor together that we're not to just let the guard down and say, Hey, it doesn't matter what you believe. Yes, it does. W. A. Criswell. He's with the Lord now. And, uh, he pre he was the pastor of first Baptist of Dallas many years ago. But he said, ecumenist, ecumenist, ecumenicity is another name for the death of our Baptist faith. Ecumenicity is another name for the death of our Baptist faith. And that's what we're seeing. And I'll tell you, the devil is using music to unite everyone Like people go to these concerts and they, they're like from all different churches. They're all together. The worship services are like the concerts. It doesn't matter. And doctrine is not the main thing anymore. Well, that's why they're taking the name Baptist off the door because they're leaving the faith, the truth of God's word. So let's walk down this list, because this is the unity of the Spirit that He is producing. There is one body, verse 4, one Spirit, even as you are called, and one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all. So there's seven doctrines here, and I'm gonna list it this way. There's only one church. There's only one body. There's only one type of body. It's a local body of baptized believers that is called the church, the ecclesia, the called-out believers. this is the body of Christ go to chapter 1 verse 22 and 23 and have put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head of over all things to the church which is his body this is the church it's the body of Christ the fullness of him that filleth all in all So there's only one type of church in the Bible, and this is where theology books, you have to be careful what you read, what you listen to, because the theology that is prominent out there would be this, that the body is universal and invisible, that it's all believers. You never find that in the word of God. It's not all believers. It's never been taught that way in the Bible. So we know from our Baptist history that Catholics taught the Universal Visible Catholic Church. That's what they taught. The Protestants left the Catholic Church and they began to teach the Universal Invisible Church Theory. to justify their existence outside the visible, universal, visible Catholic Church. Now there's a universal invisible Protestant. The real body is not visible, but invisible. None of this is taught in the Bible. So brethren, every true church of Christ is a local assembly of baptized believers Jesus is the head of every local body. This is the only type of body found in the Bible. There's only one body. One church. Number two, there's one comforter. There's one spirit. That's what it says here. There's one body and one spirit. And this one spirit is the Holy Spirit. If you just walk through i'll just give you some verses here ephesians 113 he's called the holy spirit of promise. I could I could preach messages on each one of these phrases He is the earnest of our inheritance 114 By him both jew and gentile have access to the father ephesians 218 Oh by him god have inhabits those who are being built into a holy temple, Ephesians 2, by whom the mystery of Christ was revealed to the apostles, Ephesians 3, 5, through whom God strengthens with might the inner man, Ephesians 3, 16. And he's the one whose unity is to be maintained in the bond of peace. Think about the spirits ministry just listed through all of these chapters here. There's only one spirit. And we need to be careful that we don't buy into the ecumenical charismatic spirit, because it's not the spirit that we believe in. And the Bible's very clear, 1 John 4, 1, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God. You can't just believe every spirit. This spirit is uniting Catholics, Protestants, Pentecostals, Evangelicals through the signs and wonders movements which started in the early 1900s. This is not the spirit that we know of the Holy Spirit of God. The sign gifts, such as healing tongues, miracles, were performed by the apostles to confirm the word of God. We could go back to Mark 16, it tells us that, Hebrews chapter 2. That was being revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. Since the completion of God's word, 1 Corinthians 13, The end at the end of the first century this sign gifts have ceased. Do you remember church history? It's very clear. These were real men of God. These were real churches All these Baptists that we've studied they did not speak in tongues. They didn't they didn't believe in the Apostolic gifts. These are the churches that brought the truth down to us today and the authority so This started in the 1900s. It wasn't through church history. They didn't believe that. Even the first pastors after the apostles recognized they were apostolic signed gifts. So don't believe just because all these churches do this stuff that it's always been in the church. No, it hasn't. There's only one spirit. And the truth of the matter is, And I want to say this, but I say it as a warning. Those who perform such miracles are doing it under another spirit, not the Spirit, not the Holy Spirit of God. That's serious. It's another spirit. There's one church, one comforter, there's one confidence, and that is the hope of our calling. He says in verse number four, you are called in one hope of your calling. Paul spoke of that as the eternal inheritance we have received. And that goes back to chapter one. There's an eternal inheritance. That's the hope that we have. It's eternal. We've inherited it once we came to Christ. And he's telling us in those verses, remember I talked about the spirit being the earnest? The spirit, oh, guess what we had to do? We had to pay earnest money on our new property. The earnest. And the Bible is telling us, okay, how do I know I am saved and I'm sealed and I have eternal life? It's because of the spirit that's given to me as the earnest. As the down payment to show me that's my eternal inheritance. Here's what I'm giving you now. I'm giving you my spirit. The Bible tells us it's a lively hope. from the resurrection from the dead Jesus. He died for us. He shed his blood for us. He died for our sins, but he didn't stay in the grave. He rose again and he's given to us a lively hope. Amen. And it's speaking of the Blessed Hope. That's the second coming of Jesus. He's coming back. I think of that list that Brother Martin read this morning over there from the last days and the signs of the last days. We know what they are. It's very clear. I think he did that in the Spanish service. You may have missed that if you weren't here. But I know he said it. That's the blessed hope, Jesus coming back. The more we look out here, brethren, and see all these signs, we know one thing, Jesus is coming back. It's gonna be soon. We need to be ready spiritually. How about the false hope of the World Council of Churches? This is where we get into all this dominion theology, replacement theology, liberation theology, utopian Marxist societies. Show me one Marxist society that really worked. Did it work? Is it working in China? Did it work in Russia? Did it work over in Vietnam? Is it working in all these countries? Do you know what I mean? It doesn't work. It's not from God. These are doctrines of devils that are being sowed in our world and people believe this stuff. They preach it from church pulpits. The only hope for this world is the second coming of Jesus to put all of his enemies under his feet, amen? Isn't that what it said here? he hath put all things under his feet when those enemies are going to be put under his feet and he establishes his kingdom that's the one hope of our calling that's the blessed hope amen this is the one confidence you ought to have so there is definitely what we've seen one church one comforter and one confidence That hope of your calling number four. There's only one christ. Amen There's one lord There is no the bible, uh says that when jesus rose from the dead in acts 2 That god hath made him both lord and christ. There's only one lord. It's jesus christ He's both lord in christ acts 2 36 Every knee one day is going to bow and confess that he is lord philippians 2 11 Think about The catholic church and the catholic religion they bow to the pope As their lord How many and I hate to say i'm sorry to burst your Your bubble, but even billy graham bowed to the pope That's just the truth These men, they compromise, they compromise for the sake of unity. And they're saying like the Pope is a great man of God. No, he isn't. It's a false church. He's the false head of the church. He has no authority from God. How many pay lip service to the Lordship of Jesus, but they deny him with their works. And that's where I think today we need to get serious about serving God. We need to get serious to let people know he is our Lord. And how do you do that? He said, why call you me Lord, Lord, and do not what I say. The way you show people he's Lord is you get serious about obeying the word of God. and applying it to your life and let people know your allegiance. You are a Christian. You follow Jesus Christ. He is your Lord. You obey him above all things. That's what we need today. How many people worship man rather than the Lord Jesus Christ? They idolize man in the place of Jesus. Let's not do that. Amen. Well, I've known great men of God, but they never once wanted anyone to think that they were great men of God. They just serve God and humility and obedience and did what God called him to do and they didn't really receive the praise of men. It wasn't what was important. They weren't doing it for men. They were doing it for Jesus. There's one Christ. There is one creed or one faith, it says, one creed, one Lord, one faith. And we know that faith, when we talk about the faith, it is that complete body of doctrine that we hold in our hands, that New Testament doctrine of the faith. And the Bible says it was once and for all delivered to the saints. And that's just a wonderful phrase. Jude 3, this doctrine. That's why we can say we have a complete Bible. The faith is complete. It's once and for all not to be added to. It's delivered. It's already given to us. People don't need to be looking for new revelations. They don't need to be looking for other books and prophets and visions and dreams. We need to get back to believing this faith that was delivered to us. You know by who? Jesus. And you know through who? The apostles. The holy men of God. Let's not, in any way, let's hold, let's revere this. This should be revered in our life. It's the word of God. It's the faith that he delivered unto us. It's only one. Paul taught Timothy. It's the form or the pattern of sound words. That's what it is. The pattern of sound words. He was to commit this faith under faithful men. How many faiths? So, uh, brother Martin mentioned the Mormons and, uh, there's a pastor out in Utah and I forget. He just had a post about what the Mormons really believe in. It's way off. I mean, everything about the Bible, everything about Jesus, they don't believe in Jesus. They don't preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a false gospel. So you have the Book of Mormon. That's their faith, right? Joseph Smith. You have the Jehovah's Witnesses, progressive revelations, which the governing body decides and publishes in the Watchtower Society. The Catholics have the Pope and church tradition. And today, I don't know about you, but don't be reading Calvin and Luther. The Protestants have the writings of Calvin and Luther, and that's why they are Calvinist, because they follow Calvin instead of the Bible. Charismatics have their visions, their dreams, their prophecies. No, Matt, no, no wonder there's so many winds of doctrines and mass confusion in the world today. Aren't you thankful that we have and we hold in our hands the faith, the one and only faith delivered by Jesus Christ right here. Thank God for that, amen. And there's one confession. That's the baptism. There's only one baptism. Again, so much confusion today that you have the baptism of babies, you have the baptisms by Catholics, baptism of babies by sprinkling, Protestants, baptism of babies by sprinkling. You have Charismatics and those who teach the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They do not understand that that was historical. And I just read in John 7, if you're reading the Bible, it said very clearly that the Spirit should flow through us, but it's not until Jesus was glorified. So when Jesus was glorified, that's when the Spirit was given. Pentecost there can only be one Pentecost. He was glorified and the spirit came down and he's still here in this age It doesn't happen all it just happened one time That's the one baptism today is water That spirit baptism happens And it's over. That's why there's only one in Ephesians 4. It's one. And we go back to everything that's practiced from John the Baptist, Jesus Christ baptized by John the Baptist, the apostles baptized by John the Baptist. And what did they practice? The Great Commission. Go through the Book of Acts and you see those who were after they were saved were scripturally baptized. They were added to the Lord's church. And this is your confession. This is how you confess. This is why it's so important when you're saved to make a public confession that you are a follower of Jesus through your baptism. You're showing everyone that you died to your sins. You were buried and you rose again to walk in newness of life. And that new life is through Jesus Christ. That's your confession. That's what baptism is all about. So there's only one baptism. by immersion in water. After you're saved, you're proclaiming the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It's a church ordinance, and it's so important. It's like this holy ordinance we are having tonight. Baptism is the other holy ordinance that we should really hold highly in high regard in our hearts and our minds and really say, you know, did I follow Jesus? Was I scripturally baptized? If not, get right with God. There's one creator. Verse six, there's one God and father of all who is above all, through all, and in you all. There's only one creator. He's unique. There's one God, there is no other God. He's the father of all, meaning he's the creator of all, amen? He's above all. He's sovereign. He's in control. He's through all. This is his activity in the world, amen? He's at work in this world. He's in you all. His presence is ever with the saved. This is amazing. There's only one true God who manifests himself in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. How many false gods are worshipped today? The Unitarians deny that Jesus is God. They deny the doctrine of the Trinity. Universalists believe, you got the Unitarians, you got the Universalists that believe God is the father of all and all mankind in the end will be saved. They deny everlasting punishment for unbelievers as clearly taught in the New Testament. Paul said over there in Romans 1 they have a God after their own imagination not the God of the Bible Isaiah 43 10 says you are my witnesses say the Lord and my servant whom I have chosen that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he before me there was no God formed neither shall they'll be after me and what did Jesus say I am. If you don't believe that I am, you shall die in your sins. He is God. Amen? Isaiah 40, 18, to whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare him? Amen? This is an amazing thing to know God. You have to find him in the pages of scripture. He reveals himself here. He reveals who he is right here. You can't know God just by looking out here. You can know that he's a creator. He's all powerful, but you got to get in the book. You got to get in the Bible to really know him, to find out who he is. And I'm thankful we have a Bible. that God revealed himself in, amen, that we can have the knowledge of the one true God through his word. Brethren, can you see tonight the seven ones constitute the unity of the spirit, that as members of the church, we must be diligent to keep. That's what that word endeavoring to keep. This is no light thing. We need to endeavor to keep this unity in the bond of peace. You know, people today, there's books written about the essentials and the non-essentials. Let me just clear it up. Don't buy the book because all doctrine is essential. It's essential. There's no non-essentials here. That's the ecumenical phrase in non-essentials, in essentials unity and non-essentials tolerance or something like that. Not me. Why are they non-essential? Or why are they essential and not and what they say? There's non-essential beliefs. Why do we say they're essential? Because they're in the Word of God. Everything in the Bible is essential. Amen. Do we maintain one Lord? Are we steadfast to hold the one baptism? Brethren, we are to guard all seven of these doctrines if we are to have unity in our church. Allah. Let us not seek to have unity at any cost. Let us not try to base our unity in the feeling of love and forget doctrine. This is not pleasing to God. We know From the time that John the Baptist and the early church and the apostles and all through the pages of scripture, truth unites or truth divides. Truth unites or divides. We must accept this maxim. It's a maxim. You can't, it's unchangeable. Truth unites, truth divides. That's the way it is. Let us embrace God's truth found in his word and experience the unity of the spirit. So tonight as we approach this table, this, the Lord's table, this is another doctrine that unites us in a body. Amen. The ordinance of the Lord's supper because it declares our faith. this jesus isn't in the elements like remember you have transubstantiation you have conscious substantiation he's with it or he's in it these are protestant doctrines catholic doctrines where you know there's nothing i can say to to magically and mystically put the presence of jesus in the wafer and in the fruit of the vine there's nothing in the unleavened bread or through the there's nothing i can say or do no man to change us in to the body and blood of christ it's impossible these are representative of the body and blood of jesus they're not literally his body and blood But what makes this special is that we know that we received him as our Lord and Savior, that we believe in him, that we trust his precious blood to save us from our sins. He's the only one that's Lord in our life. He's the Christ. He's the Lord. He's the savior and we're trusting in him. And so when we partake tonight, we're honoring him. We're recognizing his sacrifice. Look at all he did for us at the cross. Look at what he's done for us. Raising from the dead. Look at what he's doing for us at the right hand of the father. Guess what? There's one hope, he's coming back. And remember what John 14 says? That where I am, he may be also. That's heaven being with Jesus. You're not gonna care about everything you see up there. You're gonna wanna see Jesus. I hope you're looking forward to that day because even the Lord's table right here, what we're partaking of, it proclaims that, that we're waiting for him. It proclaims that we have a hope that he's coming back, that he's alive. That's what we're doing tonight. We're celebrating. Yes, we look back. We're remembering his death, his sacrifice, but then also we look forward. Amen. He is coming back. We're proclaiming this gospel until he returns. That's part of the Lord's Supper tonight. Brethren, let's take a little time right now to do two things. Number one, three things I mentioned here in this text. Are we really living worthy of Jesus on our daily basis? That's worthy of the vocation, that worthy walk. He called us in salvation, verse one. Do we have the right attitudes towards each other? Lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another in love. Are we endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit based on doctrine? Do we have this firm conviction of all these seven doctrines? Do we have it clear in our hearts what we believe and that we know that our faith, even the Baptist faith, is the right faith? The Baptist name is the right name because it identifies us for what we believe and what we have always believed and what John the Baptist believed. There's no other church like that. And we don't need to be proud of it. But we ought to be thankful that we have that faith. And that we can look back. I know I haven't said much, but with God's help, I'm gonna put together that everything I saw live during the Baptist tour out east in the northeast, so that it could be edifying to you as well as much as it was to me. But that's what, when we look back, we really appreciate what was handed down to us from Jesus, from the apostles, and then through our faithful forefathers who really dedicated everything they had to Jesus. and they made this country what it is today from the inception of this country, but not many people recognize that. And I know maybe even Baptists today, maybe you as members don't appreciate, I think we're learning to appreciate some of the things that Brother Ted brings to us and things that we've read. We learn to appreciate everything that we have received and that we can say we are a true church of Jesus Christ. I don't know. And I'm not saying this to discredit anyone. But I don't know how many churches true churches of Jesus Christ are even in the Houston area. I'm sure there are. And I hope there are. But there's not many true churches of Jesus. So we ought to be a thankful people tonight. We ought to come together around this Lord's table, thanking our Lord, thanking Him for what He's done in us, that hope, that vocation we're with, we are called, amen. And have the right attitude tonight. We need to get right one with another. Let's do that. And also, brethren, having the right doctrine and really being firm in your doctrine. Don't be wishy-washy. Don't be moved around. Don't be opening your mind up like, oh, yeah, I can accept this, that, and the other. No, be firm. Be firm on this truth, not because I'm telling you. It's in the Bible. Just go study it. It's there. Everything that I mentioned tonight is a Bible doctrine clearly taught in the New Testament. And we need to have firm convictions about every one of those seven doctrines. And then the rest of the 150, and I said 150, not because I've counted them, but how many doctrines are there in the New Testament? Maybe thousands? I don't know. That would be a good question. To ask and to find out but so many doctrines that we need to hold to but these are seven Major doctrines that unite us tonight, and i'm thankful for every one of them and you ought to be thankful, too They exalt jesus They lift up jesus They're the truth about the god god the father god the son And god the holy spirit right there in those verses the truth about who God is and what he proclaims to us tonight. Let's pray. Every head bowed, every eye closed.