We are on page number 148 in our study here. I was studying this week, or I was studying other things this week, and I think it was yesterday, or maybe it was Friday, I about had a heart attack, because I started thinking to myself, I was like, where are we at in Sunday school? Because I finished preparing for Wednesday night, and I'm like, where are we at in Sunday school? And I thought, oh no, I got to get the next study ready, oh man. And so I got on and I went through victory, letter V, when we get to that one next week. But anyways, I got done with it and then I looked back and I saw number three here and then I went on YouTube to see if I had already taught number three. I'm like, no, I guess I left that one. What's that? Well, no, I was just looking to see if I had already taught this. Oh, you're saying like last week's was recorded, so I was able to see where I left off Because I had it marked in my book, but I thought, you know, because I've got, like if I look back other studies, I've got it marked where I stopped and where I started the next one. And this one I'm like, oh man, I've got, I just didn't, I couldn't remember if I'd done it or not. That's, that, when that happens, what's that? Got my ABCs confused, yeah. Well, this is numbers. This is, this is letter U3. But what, What I that that's that's a very good indicator that I'm too busy. So I was just I was talking to Brother Aaron Adams last night, I said, I said, Brother, I was wondering what it was, it's made me so busy lately. And then I realized, I'm taking two classes. And I start thinking about what is that doing to me? That's like, that's like 38 hours a week of school stuff. craziness, so that's why I cut it down. So, anyways, praise the Lord that'll be done on Saturday. So, anywho, we are on page number 148. We're talking about unity. We have thus far discussed the man's first attempt and last attempt at unity, or final attempt at unity, and how both attempts failed. And then last week we talked about true versus false unity. And then we save this last little bit for this week. Lord willing, we will get done with this and. It won't be too terribly long and it won't be too terribly short. So this week we're talking about the unity we need to be concerned about as opposed to having a following a spirit of unity as they were as they were talking about with the false unity. They try to follow this spirit of unity. we rather are fellowshipping or endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit. So, letter A here says, the aspiration for church unity. Those involved in the ecumenical movement often quote John 17.2 as a proof text to show their movement is of God. Did I say 17.2? I meant 17.21. Note, this particular chapter in John is the Lord's real prayer, or the real Lord's prayer. Sorry, the real Lord's prayer. So, if you look at this passage, which we're gonna read anyways here in a moment. Actually, we'll go ahead and read it now. John 17, 21 through 23 says, that they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee. that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me, and the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." I'm sorry, but that verse just totally sidetracked my brain to think about what Brother Travis sent me earlier this week about some Pentecostals that believe in the oneness doctrine. How in the world, if Jesus is everything, if he is the Father and the Son and the Father is only symbolic and all this kind of stuff, how in the world does Jesus pray to the Father and say thou, thou, thou, thou, thou, I, I, I, thou, we. You got it. There's a passage you can go to, John 17. You can also go to John 14. But the fact is this passage, as well as unity, it also teaches the Trinity, or at least two parts of the Trinity. the father and the son being two separate people in one God. Makes easy, perfect sense to us, but a few blocks down the road, some people are a little confused about it. So does that make sense there? Just just making sure. All right. But I didn't put that there. This was written probably before I was born, but. So first question, do you think God the Father would have answered this prayer of his son. Or is it up to man to answer it for him? This prayer of unity. Is it our job to answer Jesus's prayers? No, God answers the prayer. And God has and is answering the prayer. Says to read this passage carefully, which we just read. And it says, check below the real desire of the Lord's prayer. So what is he really desiring? Is he desiring a union of all Christians, no matter what their beliefs or denomination? Or is he desiring unity between members within each particular church? is the desiring unity between members within each particular church or union of all Christians, no matter what their beliefs or denomination. I was just studying on, last night actually, I was studying on the topic of, well, it had to do with Baptist history over the last, basically since 1900 to now, and how the how Baptists have separated, have joined the fundamentalist movement, how some had separated, how some, you know, the various reasons for their separation, looked at the evangelical movement, the new evangelical movement, all that kind of stuff. And the mindset behind these unifiers, so to speak, or these, These that seek unity, the movement, the ecumenical movement, the mindset behind them is that this passage is saying that Jesus wants all believers or everyone who calls themselves a Christian to be unified or have a union together, regardless of their beliefs or denomination. The Bible teaches us that we're to separate from things that are wrong. And in fact, as I was looking at some of that study, I thought, you know, where do you draw the line on some things? You know, can you fellowship with others who are of another denomination? And the answer to that question, I believe, is it depends on what you're calling fellowship and how far you take it. Can I have lunch with a Pentecostal? Sure. Can I go soul winning with a Pentecostal? Why? Because they're going to say that there's more to salvation than just repenting and believing the gospel. They're going to say, many of them, some of them will say that it's just repent and believe the gospel. Others will say you have to speak in tongues, you have to be baptized, you have to believe that Jesus is God, and not just that Jesus is God, but that the Father and the Spirit are in Jesus, and God is just one person, as opposed to being three persons and one God. That's the thing with Pentecostals. Can I fellowship with them? Well, it's going to depend on what we mean by fellowship, how far we take it. Practical things, we're going to run into problems. Can I fellowship with a Baptist that believes in Calvinism, in hyper-Calvinism? Maybe in some ways I can. We could probably pray together. We could probably eat lunch together, whatever. But can I endorse the guy's preaching? Can I go witnessing with him? First of all, hyper Calvinist may not want to go witnessing because his belief is that God's going to choose whoever he's going to choose, whether he goes witnessing or not. Or in some cases he says, well, God's commanded me to go, so I'm going to go, but God's going to choose who he's going to choose. Problem is, if he's preaching that doctrine at the doorstep, I can't go witnessing with him. Can I fellowship with somebody that uses a different Bible than the King James Bible? I can go to lunch with them. We can talk scripture. They're not gonna preach here. I might preach at their place and tell them, you know, King James Bible's the word of God for the English speaking people today. But can I fellowship with, can we go, can we go street preaching together? I, I, in fact, I, I, I know of a man who was street preaching and he and I had this discussion. It got, it was over the phone and it became a pretty heated discussion. He said, I was, I was being stubborn and uh, and you know, unreasonable because I said that the King James Bible is the only It's it's the correct. It's the Word of God the the inspired the the the preserved Word of God for our day and and I and I I said that the the new King James is not sufficient that NIV is not sufficient and all this and he's like He's like you can't I can't agree with that. I'm like, well, I'm sorry, but You know, I mean if you can't if you can't settle what the Word of God is, how in the world can you agree on anything else? He said, well, tell me what doctrine this particular translation of the Word of God, he calls it a translation of the Word of God, it's a version, but this particular translation of the Word of God, he says, tell me what doctrine that changes. He said, well, let me tell you, the primary doctrine that it changes is the doctrine of the Bible itself, the doctrine of the preservation of the Word of God. So the whole mindset behind updating the Bible when you have the King James Bible is modern English. It's not ancient. It's not archaic. It's not middle English, and it's not old English. It's modern English, and it's written at a fifth grade reading level. Anyone can read it. If you can read, you can read the King James Bible. But the idea here is, you know, he's saying, well, You know, we just need to, and his mindset was, we need to overlook this issue for the sake of unity. And he's saying, you know, we need to unify because we believe the same gospel. And I'm like, well, yes, we believe the same gospel. We believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins. We believe that you must repent, trust in Jesus Christ to be saved. When your Bible teaches a gospel of progressive salvation, that you're being saved because you read the NIV, well, that's, you're either not properly explaining the scriptures that you have, or you are and you believe in progressive salvation. I believe in progressive sanctification for the saved person, but not progressive salvation. You're saved instantly when you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're saved. But as far as your sanctification or the salvation of your body, so to speak, that's over time, which we'll talk about when we talk about victory next week. But the idea here is union of all Christians cannot happen because of differing beliefs. Where some would say, absolutely, if you hold to this belief, we can't even talk. I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. I would say that we can have communication or whatever on grounds where we agree. However, there's various things that we cannot do together. There's things that people that disagree with me on Baptist history that we can't agree on. And because we can't agree on that, there are practical areas in which we cannot be, we can't work together. You know, working on, say, a Baptist history tour. I've talked with other individuals who hold a strong Calvinistic standpoint. I can't publicly identify with them, even on Baptist history. even if they think that many Baptists had a strong Calvinistic view. I believe that some did, and we recognize them for their good, but we still repudiate the bad that they've done, or the wrong doctrine that they believe. So, as far as union of all Christians, that's not the answer. That first one is not the answer. And that's because different beliefs cause different actions. Your beliefs will directly affect your practical outworking of your faith. Does that make sense? If I believe that that there's these hyper grace people that believe that that, you know, we're no longer under the law, but we're under grace. And in that sense, what they say by that, what they mean by that is that I don't have to answer to God for what I do anymore. He just has grace on me and I'm good. I can do whatever I want now. Well, it's unscriptural. The Bible says that we're not using our liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but our liberty and the grace of God, it teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and so forth. So the people that believe that ultra-grace doctrine, they're going to have a different practice than the ones who believe scriptural grace, biblical grace. They're going to have a different practice. And so therefore, because their practice is different, They can't fellowship. They can't have union. And where the practice is different, the practice is always different because the belief is different. Where you have differing beliefs, you're going to have differing practices, and that inevitably is going to happen. And obviously, as we come in contact with other people, the easy answer is, if you're not a Bible-believing, King James-thumping Baptist, then, and you know, sacred music and you know, separation from the world and all that, then we're just going to separate from you and we're not going to have anything to do with you. That's the easy answer. It's not, I don't believe it's a scriptural answer. I think we, I think we're supposed to treat everyone with dignity and respect, even if they disagree with us. However, we are to be, uh, we are to separate from ungodliness. We are to separate from worldliness. and we are to separate from false doctrine. Um, it's just a matter of how far we take that. I do know some people that say, you know what? You disagree with me on this. And you just, as far as I'm concerned, you no longer exist. And you know what? If you do exist, you're nothing more than a pain in my side. And I'm just gonna push you off and, and reject you and all. I'm not for that. I'm for You know, you disagree with me on this. If it's a doctrine that affects salvation, then obviously I'm going to say, you know, you really need to check that doctrine. I'm going to treat them just like any other lost person, not like there's some scum of the earth and losers and there's no hope for them. No, I'm going to treat them like any other lost person. I'm going to try to teach them the truth. I'm going to try any opportunity that I have to talk with them. I'm going to push them toward the truth. if if they're going if they're going to be stubborn about it or difficult about it, then obviously we'll just Agree to disagree and and carry on obviously if that if that's going to be a contentious point then then you can't You can't really have contact but that's going to be up to them so anyways a whole lot of time on point number two there, but I just want to make sure that we understand that it's not, that what Christ is praying for here is not union of all so-called believers. Of course, if we all are believers of the Bible, then yes, of course we can have union, of course we can have unity, of course we can work together on things. I'm all for, you know, Baptists of like faith working together on things. In fact, I've been even thinking about different ways in which we can work with, say, McGregor Road or Beulah Baptist or other churches to accomplish more work for the kingdom of God's sake. Now, obviously, we as a church have the great commission that we're supposed to be accomplishing, and their church does as well. But there are some things that we can't do because we're small and we don't have the resources. And if they're willing to help, then they can be an assistant to something that we're doing. Or if they want to do something and we can be of assistance, then, you know, I'm perfectly fine with that. we have to maintain autonomy of each local church. We can't, we can't go and say, you know what? We'll help you with this as long as we have say in what you're teaching or whatever. It's like if we go to McGregor road and say, Hey, we're going to help you with youth night or say we're setting up our youth night program and we say, Hey, we need help. And you know, they've got, say they've got people that they can spare to send over and help us. But they say, you know what? will help you as long as your program is like this. You come to help, not to be in charge. And that's the same thing. If we go over there and say, hey, we're going to help you with your youth program, or we're going to help you with this or that or whatever, we're there to be a help, not there to call the shots. They have an autonomous local church. We have an autonomous local church. When we're assisting another church, they're in charge, we're helping. So that's kind of like the youth rallies. Whatever the hosting church is, they call the shots on how the service goes. But the ministry itself is under the ministry of First Baptist of Liston. So they control that ministry, but how the service goes, that's controlled by the hosting church. Anyways, so I'm not against unity. I'm not against working together with others that believe like us. But I am against working together with people that don't believe like us. When we disagree in belief, we're going to disagree in practice, and it's just going to be impractical, first of all. And then secondly, I believe it's unscriptural. Can two walk together except they be agreed? No. All right, so number three. To whom was the epistle of 1 Corinthians initially addressed? Okay, under the church of God at Corinth. which is at Corinth, so the church at Corinth. Real problem in this church, 1 Corinthians 11, 18 says, for first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions, and I partly believe it. So the real problem in the church there was division. God's will for the church at Corinth and every other New Testament Baptist church is that there be no Schism Schism there be no schism in the body. That's hard for this church to do, you know It's funny like at McGregor Road. We talked we would talk about like schisms or or division or whatever Well, they have like two two rows or two. What do you call columns? I guess of pews like have an aisle down the middle And we talked about like how sometimes, you know, it's like, so this side of the church, you know, would have this opinion and that side of the church would have that opinion and you have both. What's nice is we don't have a row down the middle or, you know, an aisle down the middle. So everybody's all unified in one row here. But the schism is basically a cut. Well, OK, we have a definition here, a division, separation or split. Disunion. Yeah, very good. So, there you go. So, God's will is that there be no schism in the body, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 25, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one of another. By the way, this concept of ecumenical theology or practice and so forth, it's based upon an idea that there is some universal church or some universal body. And so, they take that verse of not having a schism in the body. And they say that that's talking about all Christians in the entire world, that we shouldn't have any divisions at all. I believe that's unscriptural because you look at that chapter, it's not talking about all Christians everywhere in the world. It's talking about the church at Corinth specifically, a local church. And it applies to each other, to every other local church as well. But the Bible knows nothing of a universal body. which y'all know. Number seven, what is the Lord's desire concerning all the members which are within our church? Ephesians chapter four, verse 13 says, so we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God unto the perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. His desire is that we all come into the unity of the faith, and that we have maturity, that when people look at this church, they see the fullness, or the stature of the fullness of Christ. So the aim of church unity, number one here, it is significant to note that both Ephesians 4, 16, and 1 Corinthians 12, 12 through 27, which are there, liken our church to a human body, calling it the body of Christ. In Ephesians 4.16, Ephesians 4.16 sees the goal of our church to have every member working together just as a fit athlete has every joint and muscle toned to perfection. So this, it says from from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." We have this goal of being a fit body, that every joint fitly joined together, or the whole body fitly joined together and compacted We're we're a well built body. We have a a personal trainer here to help help with the physical needs. And then I guess I'm kind of a spiritual personal trainer. You know, that's that's my job here is to is to help this body. And actually, that's the job of all of us is to help tone this body to the fitness level that it's supposed to be at spiritually speaking. What's that? We don't want to be a fat, lazy body. You're right. We want to be fit. Spiritually speaking bodily exercise profit of little but exercising yourself unto godliness now that that profits with all So first Corinthians chapter 12 verse 20 verse 26 says It sees the danger of our church having suffering members Thus causing the work of the Lord to be and he puts in quotes here hamstrung like when you get a a We call that It's where one of your muscles like has a spasm or has a, it locks up. What's that? A schism. That wouldn't be good. Your muscle has a, it's stuck. You know, like this morning I got up from sitting down and I'm like going like this because my leg fell asleep or my foot fell asleep. It affected my whole body. My arms had to help me walk. My back was kind of, you know, my whole body was affected. because, uh, because my foot fell asleep. So, uh, true church unity is not having a group of cloned Christians. I mean, could you imagine like a body that all the muscles were bicep? I mean, come on, you know, you have biceps and I mean, you're only supposed to have two of those. And I mean, your, your, your hamstrings kind of, they're kind of a similar shape ish. They're just bigger and longer. But, but the idea is, Each muscle is different. And in the church, each body part, each member, is going to be different. We don't think the same. We don't do the same things. We don't like all the same things. Here, he says, it means having a spiritually fit body with every member. Yes, you do. All of you. matured, ministering and multiplying. That's each, each member doing its part. You know, uh, you ever, you ever have any, uh, clients that want to work out just one muscle or one particular muscle group. And they're like, I want to have huge biceps. And they're like, you're like, can you imagine what you would look like with 18 inch biceps and a scrawny rest of your body? You know, it's like got these big biceps and like, you know, there's no, torso, you can't carry your biceps because the rest of your body is so weak that you can't carry the big biceps. So, you know, there's that. And then some people, all they want to do is work their abs. I want a six pack or 12 pack or whatever it is that you have. So I want to work my abs, but then like their back can't handle it or something. Or, or, you know, they're focusing too much on the abs and they're not focusing enough on their legs. or they're trying to get the abs so they're running a lot and they get shin splints because they didn't properly work on their legs to be able to handle the running and train for it and work up to it. Am I saying the correct stuff? Yeah, see? So, same thing in our spiritual life, in our church. We don't want to focus on just building up the Travises of the church. Of course, we want to build him up too. But we want to also build up Brother Jim. We want to strengthen every part. And so when I'm when I'm preaching, I don't generally think about what one particular person needs. I think about what does our church need? Even when I'm going through chapters of the Bible, I ask myself, I ask the Lord, I say, what is it that we need from this passage? What is it that we need? What is it that, first of all, what is it that this passage is teaching? Obviously, I can't just pull it out of the air and say, well, this is, this is what we need. So I'm going to preach on this, even though this passage isn't teaching that. No, we say, what is it? What is it that the passage is teaching? And then how can we apply that to best use it for the, for the purpose of strengthening this, this body? And so, you know, same thing when you're looking at your diet or you're looking at your, um, your, uh, Exercise or or your routine throughout the day and your sleeping habits and everything. What how is it that I can best? Prepare this body whether it's this body or this body how is it that I can best prepare the body for the purpose for which it was made and the body of Christ the church was made for the purpose of reaching the lost and glorifying God in its worship. So, and obviously as our worship is glorifying to God, we're also edifying one another, strengthening one another for the work that we're set forth to do. But if one part of the body or one aspect of the body is stronger than another, sometimes you do focus on different points, right? You can't necessarily do a whole body workout every day. Sometimes you focus on legs, sometimes you focus on arms. If you do the Bulgarian thing, it's a whole body workout. But there's some days where you spend more time on the upper body than you do the lower body. For me, it's like I'll spend a week dealing with the upper body and then I'll kind of slack off just a little bit, but maintain it for the next week and then work on the lower body. But you have differing things that you've got to do to strengthen that body. So let us see here, the aid to church unity. According to Ephesians chapter four verses 11 and 12, which says, and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. According to this passage, the Lord has given to the churches apostles and prophets ministries, which ceased with the completion of the word of God. But he still gives what? Evangelists, which are church planters or missionaries, I believe evangelists also have a part in edifying churches as well. So like, you know, if you have an evangelist, of course, their primary thing is outreach, but God also uses them to, for the perfecting of the saints as well. Not just for the reaching of the lost, but, and then we also have pastors and teachers. Very good. So God gives those gifts to the body or to the church to perfect the saints, to accomplish the work of the ministry and for edifying the body of Christ. That's the aid to church unity. So this is what God gives us to do. But that doesn't mean that the other parts of the body aren't to be a part of that. If you believe that, you should look at the rest Ephesians chapter 4 as we saw in verse 16 every joint supplies not just the evangelists pastors and teachers So the attitude for church unity and will be done here I thought this was going to go way shorter, but ended up going a bit longer the attitude for church unity this Say it says to list the godly attitudes needed in all members of our church Ephesians chapter 4 verse 2 and verse 32 What do we have? We have boldness, meekness, long suffering, forbearing. Okay. Forbearing one another in love, right? And then kind, tender, tenderhearted, forgiving. Um, you just put love there cause there was another blank, right? Oh, okay. How many blanks do you guys have there? I had one left over, too. I was wondering. So we have, with all lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. So I only have seven there. Do you guys see any different? See one that I missed? I mean, we could say forbearing one another in love, we could add love as the other one. What? Well, with all malice is also malice also being put away from you. At least that's the way I understand it. Some people say that you're to put that stuff away from you using malice, but malice is bad. The word malice is actually mal is bad. It's like badness. So if you're going to put it away with badness, I mean, I guess it's like saying I'm putting it away. Like, yeah, I'm going to put all this bad stuff away with bad stuff. Um, but I believe that that, that, that passage is saying that you're also putting away malice. Yeah. Yes. Oh, the next verse? Well, we're talking mainly about unity here. I think he might have left the space there for love. Obviously, forbearing one another in love. I almost put that, but I didn't because I was like, well, forbearing one another in love, that's like anything. But I think we could allow for it to be two. Any questions or comments on this? Nay? Let's look at our memory verse real quick, then we'll pray and be done. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Easy enough. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. There you go. I like the rest of that passage. It talks about Aaron's beard. Aaron's beard. It does. It does. Look it up. Psalm 133. It is like the the oil that hurt now. I don't remember how the rest of it goes. Let's look at it here Yeah It's all 133 Then we got a we got a close-up because we're over time. We're in we've gone into over time Got a close talking about the beard a man. Hey, I got a gas mask just in case like something goes down and need a gas mask I ordered them from family, like one for the kids, one for each kid, and then one for Melissa, and then I ordered one for me that's like, it's a hood mask, so you can have a beard with the gas mask. Pretty cool. And then like, you know, if they say, the IGR is like, you have to have your beard shaved because the gas mask. I said, no, I have a gas mask that I can wear with the beard. All right, so behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments, as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. See, I told you it talks about Aaron's beard. What's that? No, the skirts of my garments. That's like this part. the skirts of my garments, not my skirt. Aaron doesn't wear a skirt. All right, that's enough of that. Anything unrelated to that passage that anybody has to say? Comments, questions? All right, let's pray.