Break Out 7- Jonathan Foster

Over 23 years of full-time ministry. I've always been called and felt convicted to network with other pastors, to work with other churches, to see those, see other people's successful ministry. Little did I know that that's not always the case, right?

I mean there's competition, church planning, y 'all feeling competition around? The other churches don't like you? Are there many other churches around you? That's what I'm saying. Up where you're at, there's probably not as much competition that gets her feeling that way.

That's facts, I got you. And around here, people like, we want to plant churches. People are like, we ain't gonna plant no church. There's church around every corner. And I try to tell people, well, there's buildings every corner.

That doesn't necessarily mean there's churches on every corner, and there's a difference. There's not gospel-centered preaching churches. And so for those that are like-minded, we want to unite, okay?

So anybody know what the term ecumenicalism means? Anyone want to try to define that? Hey Tyler, you want to define ecumenicalism? We're asking our walking dictionary, what is the meaning of ecumenicalism?

Okay, okay. That's right. You're exactly right. And that's the whole key. There's different ways of fleshing that out. Can there be bad ecumenicalism? Can you give me an example of like what bad ecumenicalism would be?

So let me ask you this question. Why don't we have among our group, why don't we have a Catholic representative preaching here? Right. That's right. That's right. So as fun as it is for Dan and I to spar back and forth on where we're at, at the end of the day, he and I embrace because we preach the same gospel.

That make sense? It is the same gospel, the same convictions. So therefore he and I can be ecumenical. Ecumenical is saying that even though in spite of some differences, we can link arm-in-arm, okay?

So there's a couple different kinds of church unity that's trying to be out there. Like Tyler said, there's this one group that's like the co-exist group, right? You've got the little bumper stickers, you've got all the different religious symbols and like Muslims and Greek Orthodox and Jews and Catholics and Protestants and whatever.

And we just line up because we're all religious and believe in a God or a higher power that we can just co-exist because we're all religious, right? Well that's bad ecumenicalism. Make sense? We can't co-exist in that.

And then it even comes on down further to Christianity, or would we consider Catholics Christians? Do Presbyterians consider Catholics Christians? Right. Do we consider Baptists Christians? Right. Presbyterians Christians?

Some of them, right? And so what healthy ecumenical would be is discovering among the Brotherhood, among the bodies of Christ that we actually engage with each other enough to find out, at least by the word of their testimony and the fruit of their life, that they're actually an authentic Christian or not.

Make sense? Now we can't judge the heart, I get that. But from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. If I spend enough time with these guys and they spend enough time with me, they're gonna find out, well yeah, I know him, right?

I've seen him under pressure, seen him sad, and I've seen him happy, and I've seen him in those places where, like Tyler was saying, the more pressure, the more suffering, the more of who you are comes out, right?

And then we see that come out and we can have a confidence, we can have a peace that we can unite, that we can be working and laboring together. Make sense? So it is that there's this broad sense of coming together under an umbrella of faith, but then there's a more serious sense to us.

Which faith? Which gospel? There's really only one gospel, but which, what do you fall under here? And then we go to working through hard things together, right? So with the Laborer's podcast, even then, we have a set of statements of faith.

In order to be a part of this group, we're open to diversity denominationally, we're open to culture, we're open to those things, but there is a list of non-negotiables, but if you want to be a part of this group, you have to say, I believe this.

Even to the point now, just recently, within the last few weeks, we all started signing it, right? Although, did you sign it? I don't know if you signed it. You better get to sign it, Dan. I do. No, I'm not worried about it.

No, there is, there's a statement that Robert asked us, it's literally typing your name on it. It's back in the, but he's got a new baby and he's had stuff going on. We'll give him a pass. Right, Tyler?

There's something to sign, right? So, I did, I signed it, okay? No, but it is, it's literally a statements of faith and what Robert did was to, from the confessions that we've been talking about, and there's like the Nicene creeds, there's a couple others, that pretty much though all Christians, well the Apostles Creed, for example, is any, is there anybody in Christendom disagrees with the Apostles Creed?

That's authentic Christians? The answer is no, right? The answer is no. If you disagree with the Bible, right? Now, you may take some issue with the 1689 London Confession or the Westminster's Confession, there may be verbiage because of the language that we use today versus what they use then, or those kind of stuff, that you may have to unpack and work through and get explanation of.

Make sense? But there are certain things in Christianity that are non-negotiables. Here, at Biblical Life, we call them close-handed issues. This is close-handed, like I'm not even going to debate with you whether the Bible is inerrant and infallible and the authority of our church family.

I'm not even gonna, now we can talk about definitions, we can go around that, but at the end of the day, the final authority is Scripture. Biblical Life, you better get this right, okay? Testing it. Who's the pastor of this church?

Jesus is the head shepherd, right? I'm not. I get to be maybe under-shepherd or one of the guys, one of the elders, and maybe a leader among leaders or something like that, maybe, but at the end of the day, Christ is the head of the church.

This is his church. We are his people. We're the sheep of his pasture. It all belongs to him. Make sense? So at the end of the day, we can find rest in that, and I want to be connected with guys that see Scripture from that pure standpoint, okay?

That make sense? Now, what if those guys don't want to connect? What do we do then? Go find other guys, right? Go find other guys. What if they don't like you no more? I mean, what about the ministry of the gospel because my best friend just left?

So is even the apostles always unified? Checking your history here. What's an example where the apostles wasn't unified? That's right. There's Barnabas and Mark, okay? And Mark, right? John Mark. Said, he's no longer good to me, and then later while he's in prison, he says, send him to me.

Something must have happened. There must have been some kind of reconciling. Barnabas. Barnabas is the guy that was vouching for Paul. I mean, they're like ride or die, right? And then, all of a sudden, Barnabas is like, bro, I'm not going on this next journey.

I don't know if he's just like, I'm tired, or huh? Yeah. And so, and so then they're like, they divide. What about Peter and Paul? Circumcision. That's right. So then they were saying, Peter was teaching that you got to be circumcised and then you become a Christian.

Paul's over here, the Gentiles know they've been circumcised, and then he's like, I'm going to talk to him. How? To his face. That's not like, oh, guys, let's exchange emails and be buddies, okay? No, it's like, I'm going to talk to him to his face, and then they have a council, okay?

They have a council, and it's a really cool thing, and you think Peter and John and Paul would have been the voices that bring resolution. Who brings resolution to you? Do you remember? It's actually what most believe was the pastor at the time.

Any pastors know? James. James is the one that speaks up in the end and says, let's tell them to abstain from sexual immorality, not eat meat offered to idols, but let's not put a burden on them that we could not keep ourselves.

Let's please the group. Make sense? Okay, so there was a group effort, there was a shepherding, there was a group shepherding. That's one of the first models that we have that we have a great conviction about, elderly.

Make sense? There's unity, and then at the end of the day, they all spoke their mind, they all were speaking up in there. Paul said some things, Peter said some things, they were all speaking, but at the end of the day, then they come to a conclusion, and they were unified in it, and then that became praxis in the church.

Okay? Make sense? And today, we don't quite do it exactly like that. We're not creating orthodoxy and praxis. We're not going to say that we have the same authority as apostles to create these things, but yet in this local church, at Vertical Life, I'm not going to make a decision for Dan's church or for John's church, but Kevin and I and the other elders, we can sit down together in unity together, and we can make a decision for Vertical Life because we're elders of Vertical Life.

Make sense? And then Dan's church could call and say, hey, we're facing this issue, what do you think? And I'd say, you know what, Dan, we just face the same issue. Biblically, this is the conviction that we came up with.

Let me give you all that information. And who knows, it can help you. You may come up with something different with him and their elders, or at John's church, or wherever it goes. Does that make sense?

But at the end of the day, there is unity. Christian unity is something that has to be worked for. The Bible also describes it this way, that we are to strive for unity. Okay? Strive. Is striving easy?

My daughter's running track now. She ran the 800-meter relay. You can tell I ain't...or 800 meters. You can tell looking at me, I ain't never run the 800, okay? Never. I've run a 40, and a 100, and a 200.

And a 200, I thought I was going to die. So that's it, right? As far as it got. You know, I did run the mile, but it's like my own little pace here. You know what I'm saying? So in the end, she takes off.

She's in seventh place when she takes off. She's a freshman. She's running against juniors, and seniors, and everybody else. These two seniors take off. They're rolling. And then there's two other seniors in front of her, and two other juniors in front of her.

So she's like in seventh, eighth place, you know, when they get started the race. 800 is two laps, right? Two laps, she takes off running. So first lap, she's picked off a couple of them. Next lap, she gets started.

She starts running down. She comes around the last corner, she's in fifth place. Or sixth. No, sixth place. Or fifth place. Yeah, she's in fifth place. Comes around the last corner. Well, the two seniors, they're very advanced, and they're well ahead of her.

Chances of her catching them are not very good, but there's these other two right there. She's got a good chance. They're juniors. She could run them down. And you see her as she comes around the last corner, and I'm looking down the track, and I start hollering at her, come on, baby, now's the time.

Come on, come on, get up. And you see her catch another gear. She starts striving for the finish line. And those other girls are trying to keep up with it, but it's too late, because she's already running them down, and momentum running them by her.

And her first time ever running the 800, gets beat by two seniors, comes in third place. Really proud of her. And then I watched her at the end. At the end, she's about to pass out. She has to go throw up, or almost throws up.

Her legs are like jello. I mean, she has dumped it. She has exhausted herself. When is the last time that we exhausted ourselves to strive for unity? That's striving. That's what striving is. It's like, man, this is so important in the body of Christ, that I'm going to strive for this.

I'm going to exhaust myself. I mean, I'm going to put it on the line. I'm going to run to that finish line as hard as I can run. And the reality is, today in Christianity, I developed this. This is not a theological term.

This is a Jonathanology term, okay? I think we've got a Cain complex. Remember when God said, hey, where's your brother? What'd Cain say? I'm a brother's keeper. And I look around churches today, and that's exactly what they say.

There'll be a church two blocks away dying. Pastor exasperated. And this church over here is just looking at the chops, trying to steal their church members and trying to kill them in the process. When we are our brother's keeper, Christian unity, church unity, and unity among believers is a must, especially for those that are like-minded and we can hold hand to hand and arm in arm with.

We have a responsibility. And at Vertical Life, we've tried multiple times and been rejected. That hurts even worse, you know, that with the best intentions, even with like-minded in theology and like-minded in effort, and you see a church dying, they're like, no, we just want to die.

They wouldn't dare say that, but that's exasperating. It's hard to watch that. But at least try. Does that make sense? So if you're a regular church member, support your pastors, support your staff in unity, okay?

And I know it's a fancy word, ecumenicalism, because I've had people confront me that I'm not about all this ecumenical stuff. I'm like, well, define what you mean by that big word, and I'll let you know if that's what we're doing.

But there are those out there that's like, well, it's not ecumenicalism, it's denominationalism. And if you're not in my denomination, and even if you're in my denomination, you don't do the denomination like I do the denomination.

I was Baptist nine months before I was born, Baptist bred, and Baptist till I'm dead. Listen, I've got all kind of these little analogies because I've heard them. I've been in those churches. I have. And those old son of a guns, I hope they make it to heaven, but I don't know if they will or not.

Because I don't know that they really know the gospel. They sure know Baptist tradition. They sure know how to have a big old fancy church service. But then when you walk out that door, they have no idea about the mission of the gospel.

They have no idea about the Bible. They tell you what Grandpa used to say. I can't quote you what Jesus said. It's a sad thing. Let that not be said of us. I hope they don't come across hyperjudgmental.

It's just a fact though. Let that not be said of us. And so that's a big part of the reason that we wanted to to try to do a conference together. First of all, we've never seen each other except online.

So it's a good excuse for us to get together, hang out, kind of have family reunion. But we want to share the message that there are Christians across the world who don't worship exactly like you do. They sing songs about punching teeth.

People do that. Dan had us do that in the last breakout session, right? I'm just kidding. It's a song, guys. It's the Psalter. It says it.

So that makes it better, you know.

We may stylistically worship a little different. I preach loud and they preach quieter. Me and Claude kind of was in that camp preaching loud. John says he's a teacher and these guys are teachers. Stylistically, are we a little different?

Yeah, that's okay. Because 1 Corinthians, turn your Bibles there if you will. 1 Corinthians. I'll let you ask some questions because I was asked is this lecture style or discussion. We've had a little bit of discussion.

1 Corinthians chapter 12. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols however you were led. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.

Now, there are a variety of gifts but the same Spirit and there are varieties of services but the same Lord and there are varieties of activities but the same God who empowers them all and everyone to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good but the one is given to the Spirit of utterance wisdom to another utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit to another faith of the same Spirit to another gifts of healing by one Spirit to another working of miracles to another prophecy to another the ability to distinguish between spirits to another various kinds of tongues to another interpretation tongues and all these empowered by one in the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

Now I know we could have a big old long discussion about spiritual gifts and I'd be more than happy to do that. Okay, I'd say this is one of the issues that our group would have differing opinions on.

Okay, some are what's called cessationists some are called continualists. Okay, I mean most of you are vertical likers so we've already unpacked that a lot. You know, we already know the differences in the two and those kind of things.

Is that open-handed or closed-handed? It's open-handed, right? Is it a gospel heaven hell issue? It's not. Is any of us have ever said the Holy Spirit doesn't exist? The end of Presbyterians believe the Holy Spirit exists.

They believe that the Holy Spirit gives you power to do what you need to do. So do I. Amen? Make sense? There's not, there's really not a divide there. Now we can get down into the weeds. We can find some differences, right?

We can. Church of God boy right over there, right? We can find some differences if you get all the way into the denomination of Church of God but now with Big John, I don't know if there's a higher difference between most of us.

You with me? So at the end of the day, here's what we're after. Pick up verse 12. For just as the body is one and has many members, all the many members of the body through though many are one body, so it is the Christ.

When I used to read this, I read it very narrow-minded. I used to read it in the context of where I sit on Sunday morning. I still think you can to a degree. But how big is the body of Christ, Dan? Red and yellow, black and white.

They're all precious in His sight. We got the body of Christ over in Africa that might be the little toe and we got a church plant over in Honduras that might be the other little toe. We got family up in Alaska that might be the head and somewhere down here in America, there's no telling where we're probably like the butt crack or something is what I think, you know.

I don't know. I said that to wake you up. But hey, don't you want it to function, Kevin? You won't. Kevin's a nurse. That's an important part to function correctly. And if it don't function correctly, the whole body gets sick.

You with me? So I'm glad you laughed. Get you awake to wrap up the session. The whole point is this. We strive for unity because we are one body. Made up of little bitty individual members. Thousands upon thousands of members across the world.

Not just in your little house. Across the world. But you're a part of that body. We have a responsibility to strive and so you're part of a local body and this local body is part of a regional body and this regional body is part of a bigger body and on down the road.

That's where I am more Presbyterian. Okay. I do. I believe in hierarchy. I believe there should be authority. I don't like this autonomy bullcrap that the Bible says. I think it's wrong. But I don't have much connection to everyone.

Okay. Make sense? I know. Yeah, that's right. Makes sense because we're part of a body and we're connected together. We should strive for that. Any questions? Yes, sir. So here's a pre-meal guy. Here's a normal guy.

Here's a post-meal guy. So what I would say is probably where it all line up is in Christ's return. Is there any denomination that's actually going to matter? What do you think? Think it's going to matter?

You'll be like I'm in the Reformed Baptist section and then he's going to be like I'm over here in the Presbyterian section and I'm what the problem with us and vertical life you just need to know we don't fit nowhere.

Okay. So we're kind of like on this little island over here that we're like I don't know where we're at but we're in baby. Okay. We're in. We got the word. We're in. So he's saying we're talking about unity among churches, unity among brethren, but even what we're striving to do.

His statement is Jesus' prayer in John 17. His father let them be one just as you and I are one. He's saying when we see that happen in the earth this side of heaven or this side of eternity or this side of the return of Christ is it possible?

Amen. That's right. What do you think Dan? That's a good question. Yeah. Amen. I think what we're doing here this weekend is trending that direction. There's a generation of people that care more about biblical accuracy than we do denominationalism.

So again just so nobody pass out please when I say this. Okay. Vertical life is Southern Baptist. Okay. We're affiliated with Southern Baptist but we're also reformed in our theology and we're also charismatic in our belief of the Holy Spirit.

So we're really jacked up y 'all. Okay. Just say that. Okay. But it's okay. Does that make sense? Like I think there's a lot of things that are happening that we care about our denominations and if you ask me do I care about Southern Baptist life I would say yes I do.

I care because there's brothers there that I want to see right with God and there's churches that I care about that have precious people that are born again that preach the gospel to me that led me to faith.

I want to be careful not to throw rocks at it even though I disagree with some of it. Make sense? So you should care about the nomination. We should care about those things but but there's still this generation we're getting more where it's not about me just clinging to my denomination but it's clinging to truth.

And I would guarantee you every one of us if you pin this down and they had a denomination choose something that's unbiblical and that name is attached we let go of the name really fast right. We're going to cling to Christ.

It can be like the Presbyterians. They get to take Japheth and you know they just go ahead and make another sect of Presbyterians. You know Baptist are getting there. They're coming. Methodists have been there.

Lutherans have been there. You know what I mean? So it's coming. It's all this. So again what happens? There's unity that happens because you're going to have a group over here that believes something and they're going to be deceived.

You're going to have a group that believes the word of God and be like-minded and they're going to unite and honor Christ. Okay so Garrett does that help answer your question a little bit? So I don't know.

I'm not as optimistic before the return of Christ. I like Dan's answer. I'm more trendy with where I would answer it. I see a trending that direction. I think fulfillment is in the return of Christ. You know but Robert you want to answer from your...

Sure. Not even the gates of hell will stop it. See that's why I love preaching that man. You'll get me preaching in a minute now. But Jesus told Peter upon this rock I'll build my church and not even the gates of hell will stop it.

That stopping it means the gates are meant to keep it in. The church is going to go forward y 'all. That's why that's why people ask us about our eschatology points of view. I'm like there's pieces of it all that I like.

I like the optimism. I like the authority because I think the church has it. You with me brothers? Amen? We do. And then not even the gates of hell can stop us. Let's worship and we're going to close out tomorrow morning 10 30.

We'll be right back in here and it'll be our big wrap up. Laborers we will do Q &A tomorrow and so I don't have any questions submitted. Esther do we have any questions submitted? Okay. If not I promise you with this crowd there'll be somebody ask questions.

Okay. So it'll be all right. So come prepared for that. Jesse will be preaching. So let's come in a little closer together. The song we're going to close out on is a unifying song about the church and let's worship together.