Well, our verse today, Ephesians chapter four, verse three, it's a short verse, but it says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. May we pray. Lord, we thank you for a wonderful day in your house, how exciting it is to wake up on Sunday morning, get ready for church, knowing that you're gonna spend some time with people who all love the Lord, and want to do what's right. And it's just so wonderful to have a church that is not just a bunch of people, but it truly is a family that we can come together and worship you. We're thankful for that. Thank you for allowing us to partake of your table tonight, remembering your sacrifice. And may you give us some insight into this scripture today that would help us advance your kingdom for eternity, in Jesus' name we do pray, amen. Well, we have a big day on the calendar coming up next month, and I'm not talking about revival, I'm not talking about missionary coming, I'm talking about the big day we all celebrate, Thanksgiving. And at Thanksgiving, you are going to find yourself most likely surrounded by people of different opinions. The title of the message today, if it's not behind me, is It's OK to Disagree. You're going to find yourself with potentially some family members who you don't see eye to eye with all the time. You'll have some Democrats there. There'll be some Republicans there. You'll have some independents there. You'll probably have some people that don't even want to vote that'll be there. You'll have different people with different religious ideas and ideologies and philosophies and differences of life goals, all those things. I look back and my family is mixed. There's Catholics, there's people who don't claim the name of Christ at all, there's atheists, all sorts of people between my mom's family and my dad's family. I remember specifically one Thanksgiving, we were at my grandma's house, and I'm just a little boy, maybe like my son Owen there, five or six years old, and I'm sitting over at the kids' table. And we're sitting there having kids' table, and all of a sudden I hear the volume in the room begin to grow as all the adults are sitting around that big, long, extended dining room table. And the conversation began to get heated. And I remember my aunt banging her fist on the table, George Bush is the Antichrist. You know what's funny about that? Next year we gather back and we do the same thing. And here we go again. Round number two. Why do we put up with that? Why do we put up with those differences? Because we're family. Because we're family. We read here in Ephesians chapter 4, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit of the bond of peace. Why should we have unity? We're family. Why should we strive for unity and strive for peace as a church? Switching over now from family to church. People who are saved and born again. We should strive for peace regardless of if we have differences of opinions. Believe me, in the size of this room, there are a lot of different opinions. Pastor Moon told me years ago when we were talking about agreeing and he made this statement, somebody said to him something about agreeing 100%. And I remember him telling the other individual and laughing hysterically. And if you know Marty, when he gets laughing, it's just a pleasure to be around. And he starts laughing at the individual, because it was funny what he was saying, because he was saying, and he started saying, my wife and I don't even agree on 100% of everything. It's the truth. You find out real quick you don't agree on everything. When you're dating, it seems like you agree on everything. Oh, you like pepperoni on your pizza? Oh yeah, I love pepperoni on my pizza too. You like pistachio ice cream? Even if you don't like pistachio ice cream, you tell her you do just so she'll like it. That's how it goes. But as you've been married any length of time, you'll find out there are some big differences between people, even between husbands and wives. And there's disagreements, and I'm gonna say this, it's okay to disagree. It's okay. You can disagree and still have unity. That's what I want us to understand tonight as we endeavor, as we endeavor to do so. We have to accept that perfect agreement simply is not possible, but unity is possible. The church is made up of so many different, not only types of people, but different maturity levels. Different maturity levels. You have people who have just been saved and are beginning to grow. You have people who have been saved for, looks like two or three lifetimes sometimes, been saved for a long time, know the scriptures very well. You've got people in the middle that have been saved for a long time, but sadly haven't really grown and they're still kind of babes in Christ. And the maturity levels are all over the place. And when it comes to opinions and maybe preferences, we would say, there can often be disagreements. And there can even be troubles and contentions. Romans chapter 14, the pastor several weeks ago, did a wonderful job talking about Romans chapter 14 in Bible study. I encourage you to go back and listen to the whole thing about it. But in this chapter, The church was struggling with this type of thing and it says in the first verse, "...him that is weak in the faith, receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations." What was happening here in the following verses described that there were Christians who were eating meat that was being sold in the marketplace that had previously been sacrificed to idols and they were eating this meat and consuming this meat and then there was another group of immature Christians who thought that that was wrong. He even says they're eating herbs because they don't want to eat meat and they feel bad in their conscience as if they're sinning against God for partaking of this meat. even though Paul goes on to say that they have every liberty to eat of the meat. But what was Paul's solution to the matter? The mature person is supposed to yield to the immature person. That's a big step. It's a hard thing to do. For a mature person to yield to something that is perfectly free and liberty in Christian conscience to do, to be able to yield that for somebody who may be stumbling over it, for somebody who hasn't quite gotten there yet. Sometimes that's what it takes for us when we have to do things that may not be sin to us, but yet we don't want other people to stumble. Paul goes as far to say, I'm not even going to eat meat. I'll be a vegetarian if it's going to help my brother not to stumble. Those are big words. I took my family to Disney on Ice a couple, I don't know, a couple months ago. But I'm going to tell you this, if I found out that somebody thought that that was the most horrible, wicked thing to do and it was causing them problems and they were tossing and turning at night because the preacher took his kid Disney on Ice show as they skate around there in costumes. I'm going to tell you tonight, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to go. Why? I feel like I have every liberty to do so, but yet I'm not going to. You know, I don't feel pricked in my conscience to take maybe my kids to go see a little innocent G-rated kid's movie at the movie theater, but if somebody had a problem with it, I'm not gonna go and round up the young adult class to go down to the movies and watch it. Why? Because I care about the other individual. There's groups out there and people that honestly believe Christians shouldn't drink caffeine. Maybe you're one of them. I love caffeine. I about live on caffeine. But I'm telling you, if somebody came to me honestly and sincerely Instead, that I have a problem with caffeine, I'd go drink it in private. What's the whole point of this? The mature Christian is supposed to sacrifice things for the immature person. And what's going to happen over time? What's going to happen over time is those immature people, they're going to start growing. And they're going to start seeing clearly the difference between convictions and between preferences, things the Lord allows and things that the Lord doesn't allow. But here's what I want to tell us tonight. I want unity. I don't want to be divisive. I don't want to be this fraction in the church over here and this fraction over here. separated over issues that aren't important as we're trying to keep the main thing in mind, which is the cause of Christ and furthering the gospel to all the ends of the world. And we may have to give up some things in order that we might have unity. So, there's different maturity levels. Personality differences in the church, it leads to perspective differences. Sometimes I'll, Pastor and I, maybe we'll handle a situation one way. I would say both Pastor Bill and I, our personality is more judgment-oriented. But there's people on the other end of the spectrum that are more mercy-motivated. Mercy-motivated. A lot of it has to do with your personality. I don't think one is wrong and one is right. I think that they're both good. I think we should all be balanced Christians. But I'm going to say this, I'm glad that the whole entire church is not full of just people who are judgment oriented. Aren't you? I'm glad that there's people in here that have a tendency to be more mercy motivated rather than judgment. Because the difference in the church is a good thing when it comes to those things. Not a negative thing. Not all differences are bad. Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Romans chapter 12, Ephesians chapter 4, talks about the body of Christ. And how the body of Christ, we have many different members but we're one body. And I'm so thankful that we are all not the same part of the body. Because the church would not function very well if that was the case. And so our personalities and our differences and the gifts that the Spirit has given to us are all different, but God uses them. and helps us, and so in our diversity, there is benefit. I think about the disciples, that all of them spent much time with Jesus, but each of them had different personalities. Some, in Scripture, we know more than others. You had Peter, who seemed to be a very bold individual. He was very quick in his decision-making, and sometimes that hurt him in a negative way. He was very bold. You had somebody like John who seemed to be more of a affectionate type of personality. At least that's the way I kind of read his personality. And there you have Thomas, who Thomas, he was a little skeptical. He was a little cautious. But what I want us to know is that God used all those different personalities to get the gospel to the known world at that time. God can use all different types of people. And so there's not just one way. There's not just one type of philosophy and methodology and preference. There can be a diversity that makes up the body of Christ, which is a wonderful, wonderful thing. It's important to know that good godly people often disagree. I may surprise you with a statement here, but Pastor Bill and I do not always agree. We don't always agree. There's times, absolutely, when we don't agree on everything. And it's okay, he has a right to be wrong. No, it's most likely the other way around. I end up finding out, okay, I was wrong on that. That's usually how it ends up working out. But we don't always agree on everything. But I'll tell you this, we still have unity. When I first came to Gospel Baptist Church, just finished up with college and came and met with the deacons and they asked me a bunch of questions. Had a little pitiful doctrinal statement, I believe. And they asked me a bunch of questions. And there was a couple of things that I said in there that was different than what Gospel Baptist Church believed. One of the areas was about divorce and about remarriage. One of them was about communion, communion. And I remember a couple of the deacons kind of looking at Pastor Bill like, hmm, that's different. And Pastor Bill, he said, it's okay, it's okay. And you know, Kind of just said, okay, you know, hey, look, we'll talk about those things later. And I remember a couple days later, he brought me into his office, and I'm gonna tell you this, graciously, kindly, kindly opened up the Bible and said, I just want us to look at these issues. Look, I'm not asking you right now to change your opinion on them. I'm not asking you to make a decision right in this moment. But I just want to open up, we're gonna read, we're gonna look at what the Bible says, we're gonna talk about these two issues, and you just think about them. And you know, he said, as you're gonna come here, because at that point it was pretty much, I think, a done deal up to that point, he says, look, this is not an issue we're gonna divide over. He says, here's what I want to do. As you begin to think about these issues, and it may take you some time to think about them, I want you to, if anybody asks you about these issues, just direct them to me. That way we don't have division, because that's not what we want. And over time, guess what happened? I said, Pastor Bill, I think you're right on this issue. I think you're right on that issue. But I'll tell you this, it wouldn't have happened if he would have, probably wouldn't have happened and the Holy Spirit wouldn't have worked through it if he hadn't been gracious during that time and treated me as an immature Christian. And I'm thankful, Pastor Bill, I don't think I ever talked to you about that, but I'm thankful that you did that for me. The thing is, is perfect agreement is only gonna happen on the other side. We are only going to be in total perfect agreement when we get to heaven. It says in Revelation 7-9, this ought to encourage you, By the way, just that verse right there shows that there are differences even still in heaven. We have the one mind. We're going to have perfect theology in heaven. But yet we are still going to have differences because there's people of all nations, of all kindreds, and all tongues. So we will have some differences in there. You can read later on in Revelation to hear more about that. But this next verse, in verse 10, says, "...and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb." In one voice, in a loud voice, declared. And God, up to this point, has allowed sin and has allowed contention. to run rampant. It goes through many churches, it goes through the world, and there's divisions of every kind. But I'm telling you tonight that someday King Jesus is coming back, and He is going to make sure we are all on the same page. Right now, we are broken up in all different fractions and groups, and there's this type of church over here and that type of church. God is going to sort all that out in the end, and there's nobody coming to heaven, and I've got my Baptist theology, or my Church of Christ theology, or my Methodist theology. At that moment in time, we are going to have perfect theology. And as somebody said to me, I think we're going to be surprised at some of the things we got wrong. I think we're gonna be surprised maybe at some of the things we emphasized and didn't emphasize other things. May be the case. By the grace of God we do the best we can, best we can, to be submissive to the Word of God in all things. Choose what hill to die on. Choose what hill to die on. I'm not trying to preach this sermon tonight. Maybe he got a little nervous. Chris, he's becoming a softy on us. He's telling us to compromise on this and compromise on that. There are certain things to compromise on and other things not to. Paul says in Galatians, But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that which ye have received, let him be accursed. When it comes to things like the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the sinlessness of Christ, Salvation by grace through faith. Those are things worth dying over. But there are many other issues that don't quite meet that same criteria. Jude says in verse 3, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. We ought to stand up. for the truths in Scripture. We ought to stand up for the salvation in the precious blood of Christ which saves us and not compromise that in any way, shape or form. But often people come and there's warnings in 2 Timothy 2 There's warnings about people coming with all these foolish questions. I don't know if you've ever been around somebody who has foolish questions and is consumed with foolish questions. Paul's advice to Timothy there is avoid those people, avoid those questions, they're unprofitable. You'd be surprised, I mean, maybe it's just because I'm in the full-time ministry, people just ask me the most obscure questions. And I heard a story of a very well-known preacher. He was sitting on a panel of pastors at a conference, and people were coming up to the mic and asking questions, and they were getting these strange questions. Weird stuff. And the preacher, when asked a very strange question, he answered, you know, I like soul winning. I like giving the gospel. I like leading people to Christ totally opposite of whatever they were saying. What he was trying to do is avoiding foolishness. The stuff that causes division. Let's get together on the main thing and let the preferential issues go to the side. Believe me, I'm not talking about the things, I'm not saying pushing right and wrong to the side, I'm talking about purely preferential issues. Pushing those to the side. Don't fight over personal preference. There's all sorts of stuff to fight about. We got a piano here. I happen to like a piano. I really enjoy having this piano here. I want to go to a church that has a piano. A lot of churches don't. Could be because they have nobody to play them, could be because they don't want to, whatever. Some have somebody up here with a guitar playing. Bob, I like the guitar. But in congregational singing, I like the piano. I want the piano. Is that a preference or a conviction? That's a preference. I'm not gonna not go to a church. They got a guitar up here. An acoustic guitar played in the right manner. I'm not gonna not go to that church. I'd rather prefer that one. And if I happen to someday go to a church like that, guess what I'd do? I'd keep my mouth shut. Why? Because I want unity. Pastor Bill told me a statement a long time ago, don't do anything to hurt the local church. Make it your mission in life not to do anything that is going to hurt God's church. And if we all kept that idea, man, church is gonna be a great place to be. And it's gonna stop a lot of issues that may arise. Pursue unity. He says in our verse here, endeavoring. Endeavoring means to give diligence to, it means to labor. It means that unity takes work. Unity does not happen by accident. Division happens by accident. Let me say that again. Unity does not happen by accident. It is only by purposing to do so. Division happens by accident. You don't see a big weight lifter. walking around, muscles everywhere, and think that that just happened by accident. Oh, no, no, no. He spent a lot of time making that, making his physique to look that way. He's eating a whole lot of food to be able to get his muscles to grow in that way. It didn't happen by accident. This happens by accident. I'm going to tell you that. In that same way, A church doesn't have unity by accident. It doesn't just happen. I had somebody call me last week and they don't live here. They come down and they visit every year. They're only here for a short amount of time. They watch online regularly. And they call me up and they'll say, Chris, I just love your church. I just love it. There's just such a sweet spirit there. You know, I wish that I had a church like that. And you know what my response to that is? God has given us a spirit of unity. I don't know if you can tell, but I can tell. We have a spirit of unity. Not that we never have a little something here or there, but generally speaking, we have a spirit of unity here. And I honestly believe it doesn't happen by accident. It happens because people purpose to be mature Christians. People purpose to rise above their preferences or their little disagreements here or there. It happens because our people generally are a people who read the Bible and are in the book. And it doesn't happen by accident. I do my best when I disagree with something not to ever talk about it. Mentioned earlier, I don't always agree with Pastor Bill on everything. I could probably sit down and tell you a few things I don't agree with him on, not doctrinal things, but just preferential things that I don't agree. Maybe a decision he handled this way or handled that way. But you're gonna be hard pressed to get me to criticize the decision that man has made. I don't wanna cause division. Can you imagine a sports team that had a coach that was trying to give instructions to the players and tell them, this is the play we're going to run, and we're taking a timeout here, and this is what we're going to do. And one of the players is sitting there chirping in everybody's ear, that's stupid. I can't believe he'd do that play. That's dumb. Hey, that's never going to work. Hey, if I was coaching, I'd do something different. You think that team is going to succeed? No. How's a church going to work, and how's a church going to succeed if members are going back, I don't like the way preacher did that. Chris goes around and says, hey, I don't like the way Pastor Bill dealt with that trouble that went on. You know, if I was doing it, I'd do something different. A church is not gonna function well doing that. For a team to succeed, we gotta all get along. We gotta not divide over issues. In pursuing unity, it requires effort, it requires purpose. Lastly, surrender the need to always be right or to always get your way is how we're going to endeavor to keep the unity, the bond of peace. You don't always have to be right. I like to be right, but I don't always have to be right. One of the things my wife gets on to me about I got the Holy Spirit, and I got my wife over here telling me, in a good way, she helps me. And she'll get on to me about when somebody will make a statement and say, you know, this happened like this, or this was that way, or a historical fact or something, and I grab my phone. What am I doing? Fact-checking, I wanna be right. Okay, I'm sorry. We all like to be right, but sometimes being right is not the most important thing. We have to die to ourselves often. Here's the thing, if I'm right about that issue, does it really even make a difference? No, it doesn't make a difference. But pride demands agreement. and demands to be right. Romans 12 says, be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love in honor, here it is, preferring one another. And a spiritual man is a reasonable man. A spiritual man is a humble man and knows what battles to fight and what battles are simply not important. Value, we gotta value peace over preference. Oh, we got chairs, well I want a pews. Well, we sing out of a, on the screen. I like singing out of the hymnal. These are just things that we have to get over if Gospel Baptist Church is gonna succeed. I remember when I first came to gospel, was a youth director here for about four and a half years. About the first six months or so, I had some difficulty and it was my problem. I've shared this story with several different people to try to help them as I was helped and how God helped me get through my issue. But for the first six months or so, I would go home and I would not be happy about how the youth group was being run, how I was running it. I was not real happy about the the time and the effort that I had to put towards it. I wanted to be doing this with my time. Pastor Bill had me doing that with my time. I'm gonna tell you a real struggle I had. And I'd go home, I'd lay my head on my pillow at night, and I'd toss and I'd turn, no peace. Pastor Bill wants me to do this. With the majority of my time, I think I should be doing this. Constantly this fight. One day it's like the Holy Spirit spoke to me. It was like He didn't, but it was in my spirit. It was about this idea of division and unity. Basically, give it up. And I tell you what, I determined at that moment that my one goal is not to have the youth group that I want to have. My one goal is not that I'm going to try to have my schedule that I want to do throughout the week, that I'm not going to try to do all the things that I think I should be doing, but my one goal is I'm going to do the best, I'm going to do the youth ministry that Pastor Bill wants me to do. If Pastor Bill wants me to spend one day a week at youth ministry, that's all I'm spending, one day a week, and I'm going to be happy about it. If Pastor Bill wants me to stay until all the lights are shut off in this place and everybody leaves, I'm gonna stay and I'm gonna be happy about it. And my goal ended up being make Pastor Bill's dreams come true. Sounds funny, but it's serious. Make his dreams come true. Why? He's the coach. He's the coach. And I'll tell you that. It was as if my whole life, my ministry completely changed. I got peace back in my life. I had no fighting with Pastor Bill, no arguing with Pastor Bill about doing this or about doing that, all because I didn't have to be right. I didn't have to have this preference or that preference. But I gave it up, and what happened? We had peace, we had unity, and I'm so glad. that I did it. May we pray. Lord, thank you again for your... If you would like to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, you may contact us at the church website gospelbaptistchurch.com or you can go to Facebook and type in Gospel Baptist Church Bonita Springs, Florida. Also, you could call the church office at 239-947-1285. Thank you and God bless.