Sunday Morning Sermon Series - 04/18/2021

The Church’s Unity Against Division

God's people, the church. There's only one church. There's only ever been one church. Guys, a couple of weeks ago, I got kind of fired up a little bit. And I apologized to the staff and then I apologized to the church body on that next Wednesday.

But seeing as how it was Easter, I thought it'd be prudent to wait till today to talk about this. And this is a lead in to our sermon. Trust me on this, okay? Because I'm not done talking about this. However, I need to learn that passion is a great thing, but it needs to be aimed and directed, not just, and that's one of my weaknesses.

So I do apologize to y 'all for my showing of emotion. And now, having said that, there's a reality, guys. Proverbs 27 says, God tells His shepherds, know your flock and know the well-being of your herds.

He tells us to watch over your flock with care. And the thing that I watch over my flock most of all is I'm not worried about Russians dropping out of the sky. Not that that's not impossible, because we all saw Red Dawn, but we're prepared for that, okay?

We got that covered. We can take over a small third world nation. I ain't worried about that. I don't have to watch out for my people starving, because I got enough to go around. We're good to go. But what I do have to watch out, what we enjoy in this place is a unity of fellowship, okay?

Now, that is not a church term. That's a biblical term. It means that we have true koinonia. True koinonia. Now, understanding that Satan's desire from the time where he brought division between man and woman, and man, woman, and God, his strategy has always been to divide and conquer.

He does it. He's doing it today. Do you people really believe that America is the worst, most racist, divisive country in history? Go read a history book, you crackhead, because you have no comprehension of reality.

Guys, Satan is trying to divide God's people all the time, all throughout history. And we, the church, this morning, are divided. We're divided by stupid things like race, or denomination, or other cultural ideals.

But we're gonna get to more of that in a second. God's people, the church. There's only one church. There's always ever been one church. And that church has existed from Adam until now. God's people that are the remnant of God pulled positionally out of a destiny to hell into a place of salvation that compromises God's people, or that composes God's people.

But guys, we live in a time where even the church has fallen victim to this stupidness. Now we're gonna talk about that today. I'm gonna talk to you today about the church, its unity, its diversity, and its ministry.

Doctrine Before Duty in Ephesians 4

Number one, read with me Ephesians chapter four, and I'm gonna read to you verse 16, but then in an expository fashion go out through the rest of it. Let's read verse 16. It says this. Excuse me. It says, from him, the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.

Guys, I wanna give you a quote from a minister of a Christian church. She said this, that Christian evangelism, let me make sure I'm quoting her right, I'm sorry, Christian witnessing is akin to religious, ethnic cleansing.

Let that sink in for a second. If I share the gospel of Jesus Christ with a non-believer, it is likening to Rwanda. It is likening to the Holocaust. It is akin to ethnic cleansing. That's one side. The other side says this.

I don't know if y 'all knew this or not, but this has to be true because the pastor of a Baptist church said it. God hates fags. I mean hates them. I mean like God is intent on burning them sissy boys into hell.

Oh, I can't fix stupid, but God's going to. Listen to me for a second. Listen to me for a second. Both of those extremes, neither one of them are biblical, scriptural. Look at verse one again in chapter four.

Look at verse one. What is the first word out of verse one? Say it. Now wouldn't people, when it says therefore, what does that mean? I heard a smattering of silly answers. So I'm just going to bypass you people because you might not be awake today.

It means this. Everything that has been said before it now is conjoined with everything that's fixing to be said. The first three chapters of Ephesians is about the doctrine of salvation. It is about the sovereignty of God.

If you read the first three chapters of Ephesians, there is not one doctrine that will not be found in that scripture. Now it talks about the doctrine of scripture. Then the last three chapters of Ephesians talks about the duty of that doctrine.

In other words, here's what you need to know. Now here's what you need to do. Now the church has totally dismissed all of that. We have people today in this room that could not put a doctrinal thesis together to save their life.

If I asked you the difference between propitiation and mercy, some of y 'all would go preposition? It comes, you can't end a sentence with it. I mean, you don't understand. You know why? You haven't been taught or you haven't taken the time to learn.

But the other part of this, because we don't know doctrine, we think unity is simply this, we all have to agree. And if we all have to agree, then we're gonna be unified. How many of you people in this room love the University of Tennessee volunteers?

One, two, three. There are six of y 'all that are going to heaven. Rest of y 'all are gonna burn in hell with the facts. You're all gonna burn. Guys, is that the unity it's talking about? Here's the problem.

Guys, we try to unify on things that don't matter. The way we're unified is by looking at the doctrine and putting our wants, needs, and desires down and all conforming to the image of Jesus Christ. That's how you're unified.

It doesn't mean that we're all gonna like the same things. What it means is we're all gonna live by the same standard. That's what unity in the church means. But we have forgotten to do that. We have let the world define for us what unity really is.

Listen to me. The doctrine has to come before duty and that's where unity comes from. Guys, also understand this, verse one. You ready? You ready for this? Therefore, I, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received.

You know us, we all have to be unified. We gotta walk together. And that doesn't mean we all walk together all loving the UT volunteers. It means that we walk together by working. Guys, you know how you get a bunch of people together to get on the same page?

We all charge the same hill together. We all sacrifice our individualism to accomplish a goal given to us by God Almighty. We walk worthy of the doctrine that has been given to us and we do it together as a family.

Understand that we gotta have doctrine but we also gotta have work. Let me tell you a quote by a Roman poet named Juvenile. He lived in the late first century into the early second century but he had satirical poems that he would write and he used to make fun of the government all the time.

Well, in philosophical circles now, this term bread and circuses has become very popular and here's what it means. What Juvenile said was the government was so corrupt but as long as they gave the people free bread and free entertainment, they could do what they wanted and no one would really care.

Guys, here's what's, I mean, we see that today. Our government is in the business of keeping you people divided. If God could keep you guys divided and looking at each other, you ain't gonna be watching what they're doing, right?

And these political hacks, some of them called reverends, these political hacks, once you divide it and angry at yourself, so you'll support them and what they're doing to keep you divided. But here's the problem.

Churches are doing this too. Hey, come with us. Are you seeking something? We have Wow Now Jam Conference 2007. Oh, if you come here, smile. Jesus gonna love you. Oh my goodness. We don't wanna offend you.

You just come and you just come as you are. You leave as you are. Ain't no one gonna judge you. Well, right, I ain't gonna judge you, but I'm gonna read something that probably will. It's called scripture.

If you don't understand the conviction of almighty God, you're gonna leave here just as blind, lame and dead as you when you walked in. I can't fix you. I can't save you. I ain't got no magical powers, but I do have the word of the living God that I found 28 years ago that changed my life forever and that's what I'm sharing with you.

You understand? I ain't here to give you bread and circuses. I'm not here to entertain you. I am not here to make you have warm fuzzies. I am not here for your money. I don't care about your membership.

I don't care about all that garbage. But what I do care about this is when I stand before holy God one day and he looks at me and says, son, did you do the job I gave you to do? I wanna answer, yes, sir, I did.

Without hesitation, without apology, without any intimidation whatsoever, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Be instant, in season and out to give an account and an answer to the hope that was within you.

Can you do that? Do you do that? Guys, unity is not based upon everyone being in agreement. What it is based upon is us all submitting to one thing. Guys, multiculturalism. Let me read to you something else that I found this morning from a sister church.

This is what their belief is. Ready? The church is multicultural. It needs to look like heaven. Different colors and different hearts. Seriously, that's what heaven looks like. Here's the problem. What is it focusing on?

The glory of God or people? Humanism is the exact antithesis of what God wants from us. It's not looking at us and our accomplishments and our needs and our wants and our feelings and our beliefs. It's submitting to a holy and righteous God.

When you get to heaven, you don't have to imagine what you're gonna do. You don't have to imagine anything. You're gonna be faced first before a holy and righteous God and thanking him and praising him for his grace for, as the old hymn said, 10 ,000 years, and you've just begun.

Guys, I don't care what revisionist understanding people have. True unity is not multiculturalism. Look at what it says in verses four and five. Are you ready for this? For there is one body, one spirit, just as you were called to, one hope at your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, Father in all, who is above all and through all in all.

Did you get one? It was there seven times. Guys, the goal of the church is not to be multicultural. It's to be singular in its purpose of worshiping, serving God. You know what we come to? We come to a point where we actually measure the diversity in church by the level of melatonin in someone's skin tone.

How stupid have we gotten? You know what we've done? Instead of leading culture, we are now following culture. We are taking an assumed offense and we are following them instead of following the Lord Jesus Christ.

Some of y 'all out there going, ooh, pastor, be careful. You're going too far. I'm sorry if truth hurts your feelings. Maybe you need to take a couple of baby aspirin and go call your mama and crawl up in your lap because scripture is gonna tell you the truth.

Guys, how many races of people are there? Say it one more time. A German shepherd and a poodle, guess what they both are? They might look different, but they still a dog. You guys in here are a bunch, we are a bunch of dogs.

Now, some of us are slim like greyhounds. Some of us are St. Bernard's. Some of y 'all are little rat dogs, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo. I call them personally rugby balls, you know? There's only one race of people.

Guys, you wanna cancel something, watch this, let me prove my point to you. The essence of man or the presence of man, Darwinism. Do you understand that, God, we cancel stupid things like the all-star game because someone actually has the audacious understanding to ask for IDs before you vote?

Dude, now these are the same people. I can't go buy a car without 42 forms of ID. It's stupid. It's absolutely stupid, but I don't wanna get into politics. I wanna stay right up over here, but here's the problem.

Here's what we've come to. We've come to a place in our society where we're trying to please people rather than please God, and we think if we please people long enough, we'll come to be unified. Here's the problem, though, guys.

We get into this idea where if we disagree, it's okay to disagree as long as it's not on doctrine. You idiots who actually like Ole Miss, Memphis State, whoo, whoo, whoo. You hacks that actually like those teams.

Memphis State's not even SEC. Y 'all are nowhere near heaven, but we've come to a place in our lives where we actually begin to hate each other who are different, and then we cancel them. That's the new catchphrase, cancel.

Let's cancel. Watch this. It's so funny. I want you to just read something. I think I even put it on your little pieces of paper. Darwin, in The Descent of Man, said this. He said that Africans are the lowest form of human evolution.

I ain't kidding you. I ain't kidding you. Now, Charquita has got some African in her. She did one of them blood tests, and when I see her do intellectual work, I almost kind of believe the Darwinistic theory, you know, but here's what's funny.

No, seriously, here's what's funny. Why are all these woke, social justice, keyboard warrior mama laying in your mama's basement doing nothing, playing video machines? Why aren't you canceling the evolution that's being taught to you in your high schools and in your colleges because it is the most racial, disgusting garbage you could ever believe?

Oh, well, we can't do that. That's science. Okay, so I am to believe because 97 of all scientists said that the white man was intellectually superior to all other races based on cranium skull size of monkey bones that they found and then later went, oh, my goodness, this isn't really a human being.

This is a pig's tooth. Do y 'all know how they did that? They would find a tooth and they would go, oh, well, the tooth is this big. Well, the jaw must have been this big. Well, if the jaw was this big, then the skull had to be this big.

If the skull is that big within the spine and it had to walk like this and that'd be, you look like Shane had a bunch of bananas, right? And you know what people did? They went. You know why? Because you didn't know doctrine, you weren't bound in unity and we were too busy hating each other and doing sin to each other rather than worshiping God with each other.

In the absence of truth, people will believe the dumbest things that your wife, your baby evolved from a nose picking ape. Guys, listen to me for a second. There is one race of people and here's the only problem.

They are all totally depraved. Go read Romans three and Romans six. For there are none righteous, no, not one. For all of their mouths are open and empty graves. There are none who seek me. There are none who are righteous.

All of their works are like filthy rags. Guys, the reason is we're all on the same page is because we have all been damned because of our sin and on a way to hell. And we're sitting there arguing on whose side of the boat the hole is on rather than looking to God for our help and salvation.

And we've come to a place where unity means that we've all got to think the same way rather than we all got to serve the same God. Church, we got to repent of that. And if you're in this room today, black, white, Puerto Rican, even my Filipino mafia, the Korean in here, all you people, are the Puerto Ricans here?

Oh, they're out of town. Good, all your hubcaps are safe. Listen, listen to me. Listen to me for a second. Yeah, we just licensed him as a minister, I'm scared. Listen to me a second. When you, before you leave this room, if you have a thought in your heart or mind against someone because of their skin pigmentation, come here, that is an abomination to the holiness of Almighty God.

And you don't need to sit and wring your hands and go, oh, dear Jesus, please forgive me of that. You need to come down here in front and repent of that godless, heathen sickness and let the joy of God truly break that in your heart and mind and I don't care what age you are or what culture you were raised in or that's just how we talked when we were kids.

It's sin, it's still wrong. And you same arrogance of sitting there going, well, that's just how we were, but you can't accept it. People are acting weird now, well, that's just how they are, right? The sin is sin is sin, I don't care what age you are.

I don't care where you come from. Repent today and be saved from that heathen sin. Having said that about unity, what true unity is, let's now talk about the reality that there is diversity. If we read back to verse 16 again, it says you are all one body, broken up into individual parts.

Gifts, Calling, and the Proper Working of Each Part

Guys, scripture tells us that we are diverse. Verse 11, it says he personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and some teachers. Guys, that ain't all of them. He also gave some to be gifts of mercy and gifts of service.

I think of Carol Red every time I think of the word service. I mean, it's like synonymous. Like here are the gifts of spirit, service, there's a picture of Carol right there. We all have different gifts.

Our diversity is not in what we look like. Our diversity is in what God has called us to do. That's our diversity. That's the big secret. We all are individual parts knitted together. Guys, the diversity is that we all don't have the same job.

Now let me ask you a question in here today. One of the issues that I take with membership in this church, we ain't ever gonna be a 10 ,000 member church. Not with me as a pastor. I can't handle y 'all.

I can't handle, I'm an idiot myself. I'm still trying to keep God, I feel like I got God's ankle and he's just dragging me across the floor I'm holding on for dear life. I can't handle 5 ,000 people. I can't handle 500 people.

Heck, I sometimes can't handle 200 people. Amen. We now have a position opening for women's minister. Yeah, I got a wife. All right, nevermind. Guys. Guys, we have to understand that we all have different jobs.

But now wait a minute. Now wait a minute. Let me ask you a question. Are you a member of this church? If you are, let me ask you this. What is your job? What's your job? Because watch this. You ready?

Let me hit you. Watch this. If you told your kid to go clean his room and this is what he was doing. Oh, ye therefore and teach all nations. Well, God, I've got a gold star on my Sunday school report.

Kuh, kuh, kuh. Well, God, I tithe money. I gave money to you. Do you think God needs your paper with dead people's faces on it? Guys, you don't give. Listen, man, you don't give money to get anything.

You give money because God commanded you to do. That's why in this church, we have a steadfast rule. Pastors don't know anything about it. Pastors can't touch it. Pastors can't even see the reports of who gives it.

You know why? Because today in God's church has all come about money. Right? The pastor of a church, if he has, if he is earning more than the average person of his church, that boy needs to be fired.

You need to find another pastor because he's in love with money rather than love with his peoples. You know what I'm saying to you? If you're a pastor of a church and your church has 20 people and you're driving a Bentley, something is wrong with that picture.

Okay? Sorry, I got off on a tangent there. But anyways, we are all in this room and our diversity is defined by the work that you do. What do you do in this place? Jordan, what do you do? Baby, you're in school in Arkansas.

She's in college in Arkansas. So let me re-ask the question. What do you do here? You what? I'm her liaison. You're her liaison. That's gotta be a fun job. It is a lot of pressure, isn't it? What do you, well, no, you don't count.

What do you, well, no, you don't count either. Robert, what do you do? He's from Mississippi, y 'all. I'll translate. Say again? Try and come up here when I can. He said, I try to come up here when I can.

I'm fluent in rednecks, so don't be scared. What's funny is this guy's been fighting cancer four years. Right? Thursday, he was up here and he installed lights in the bathrooms. And we saw the bathrooms and I immediately told Rebecca, paint the bathrooms.

Because dang, I didn't realize how bad and nasty them things were. Guys, we have cripples in here. Look at the cripple. Let's all feel sorry for the cripple for a second. What's hilarious is we got, how many cripples do we have?

We have two cripples here. And they both work harder than most of the people with two legs. It ain't about who you are or what. How many of y 'all are like super, how many of y 'all can explain to me the propitiation and expiation in infilapsarian theology?

Anybody besides pastor? Anybody else? Yeah, I know you'll give it a try. Look at little man holding up his hand. I like that optimism, but I'm gonna go with no. Guys, here's the problem. We are so busy trying to remember creeds and formulas like the Roman's Road and all this other stuff.

We don't know anything. We haven't truly learned. But then those people who actually study theology, who then sit around and just try to sound smart, you're a big of a failure too because you're not supposed to be sitting in a room reading books all the time and talking about theology.

You're supposed to be out there living it. You don't come to church. You're supposed to be the church out there. And the reason we're so divided is because people keep trying to look for something new and fresh to try to spark that spirit in you so you can have that little feeling.

But here's the problem. If you don't go to work, if you don't serve, if you don't sacrifice, if you don't, according to what God's word says, bleed, you're supposed to work until you contend for the faith with blood.

You're never gonna know the peace of God that passes all understanding. You're gonna keep looking to religion or little warm heartfelt songs or another great sermon to make you feel a certain way. But that feeling leaves as soon as you walk out the door.

Oh, you want the peace of God that passes all understanding? You want the joy of the Lord, which is your strength? Go and serve to the point of death, then die, get up and do it again. Then you're gonna know what it is to be diversified as an individual, but then the unity of being a part of the church.

Because you know what happens to wounded warriors in a real church? You suddenly have about 32 hands coming up behind you. They don't sit there and put you on their shoulder and take you away from the fight, but they will bandage your wounds, give you a cold drink of water, and then stand on that line with you.

That's why I love this place. Last thing and I'm done. Unity, diversity, and then ministry. Read with me verses 12 through the end. Read with me verses 12 through the end. It says this, for in the training of the saints, in the work of the ministry, y 'all catching them words, right?

Work of the ministry to build up the body of Christ until we all reach a unity in faith and in the knowledge of God's Son growing into a mature man with a stature, watch this, here's what the measurement is, measured by Christ's fullness.

Well, pastor, I come to church every Sunday. Wow. Here, just whoop-a-dee-doo. You can come warm a chair every Sunday? What's the standard God just gave here? You're to look, act, walk, talk, and minister just like Jesus Christ did.

That's your standard. It ain't your gold star on your Sunday school reporter, I got the biggest King James, or I don't cuss, smoke, or drink, or I don't have tattoos. I just saw my daughter-in-law had a tattoo.

My other future daughter-in-law, where is she? Where's Aisha? Look at Aisha over there. Aisha, she went out and got a flower tattoo all down her arm. Baby, don't you know you're going to hell for that tattoo?

You don't go to hell? She don't care. Do you, Aisha? You don't care? Aisha, baby, why don't you go get a full-size man? Seriously. Man, you pretty enough. She got a midget redneck for a husband. I don't know what to do.

Listen to me, guys. It says here in Scripture, listen, it says here in Scripture, we're to have the work of the ministry, and that means we got to equip. I know I'm running over, but here, just listen to me, listen to me.

We need as a church, here's what we need to do. We don't need smoke machines. We don't need glitter bombs and fancy lights. I'm not here to make you feel better. The music isn't here to make you feel better.

I heard church people all the time say, well, I don't like the music. Guys, the music is not here for you. That's not what worship is for. I mean, just stop the madness for a second. If you are wanting a certain type of music, who is the center of that music?

What is it about? It's you. You should be, the center should be God Almighty. If we had some four-year-old kid up here with him drum, but we should be able to praise God. If there was silence, Jesus said, even the rocks and trees would cry out loud.

The hope and the peace that you're missing is not gonna be found in a worship service. It's gonna be found in God and Jesus Christ alone. I'm sorry, that's just the way it is. Those warm little fuzzy nostalgic feelings, they don't last.

The peace of God always does. I'm getting off case again, but let's just focus. All right, ready? Pastor, that's you, you focus. Watch this. Verse 12, we need to equip the body. Now here's what I love about Witten Baptist Church.

We have put 24 people into full-time Christian ministry. We have, you know how we've done that? Because we realized the people of this place can't afford a four-year, $100 ,000 master's degree at a religious seminary, so we started our own.

We did, we started our own. A whole long time ago, we started training folks. Now they're doctors and pastors and missionaries. And you know what? I'm really happy about that, because here's what's so beautiful about that.

I did the first class. That's right, Senior Pastor Jeff Shipley. I taught that first class 20-something years ago. You know how much I've been teaching since then? None, you know why? Because the next guys that I trained, I got the heck out of the way and let them do it.

And then they trained another group of people, then they trained another group of people, just like 2 Timothy 2 says. Isn't that awesome? Guys, this little church, we've been all over the world sharing the gospel.

And we do it with people that are actually trained. I'll never forget a bunch of, I won't say, but cult members in Freeport decided to corner one of our folks, start talking to him. Oh man, that was a bad choice.

Because not only was there unity, but there was unity with epignosis. That means a knowledge based on both teaching and experience. It was like a bunch of little pit bulls on a raw piece of steak. That guy didn't know which way to go.

He said, well, in the Greek, yeah, we had him there too. No, it doesn't say that in the Greek. It says this in the Greek. And he was like, oh my gosh. And he ran away. Guys, are you educating each other?

Listen, are you worshiping God? Are you evangelizing? Let's stop right here and let me ask you this. That's James and Lisa's boy. I bet Lisa's about to crawl under the chair, isn't she? Hey, looky here.

When is the last time, it's just a kid, guys, focus up here again. When's the last time you intentionally witnessed to somebody? Think, I'm not about to beat you up. Just listen, think, slow down and think.

When is the last time, let me say this, you verbally, intentionally witnessed to a lost soul? Guys, here's what's funny. Do you know my ministry is not preaching? That's not ministry. Preaching is not ministry.

Singing in the choir is not ministry. I know a lot of pastors like to think it is. That's just because they're lazy. This is not ministry. This is not what a pastor does. I got men and women in this room that can preach 10 times better than I can all day long and twice on Sunday.

This is, I recruit deacons by the pound, okay? I'm thinking to knock you out. My chicks have witten. Murr. Guys, when is the last time you seriously, verbally, intentionally witnessed and inviting them to church is not witnessing.

Preaching a sermon is not witnessing. Singing in the choir is not witnessing. Witnessing is you taking an intentional moment to reach into the life of somebody else and share with them the hope and passion of Christ within you.

That's what it really is. That's real work. Guys, if you've done that, good. But do you know the height of which God calls us to? It's not worship. It's not witnessing. Look what it says. Knit together promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part.

You know what else that's known by? Discipleship.