Laborers'- What is true Biblical unity?

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Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast. Thank you for joining us tonight. We are going to be discussing true biblical unity.

We hope you will stick with us. Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast, which is a part of the

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Now, let's join our laborers for tonight's broadcast. Welcome back to the

Laborer's Podcast. The comment line is open. We would love to hear from you. Give us a critique.

We're open to that. How can we pray for you? We'd love to know that as well. Or ask questions, or even just let us know that you're watching.

We'd love to hear from you. Oh, my goodness. We have a full house.

A full house. Look at this. Oh, man. You just kicked out

Jonathan for Dan? Jonathan got raptured. Where'd he go?

That's why we've been wrong. Wait, I thought we weren't talking about the rapture tonight. We are not.

There he is. You guys talk amongst yourselves while I try to figure this out. All right.

Well, if you go back to the other format, I think you can fit Pastor Jonathan in that little corner there.

Either way. All right. We've got an interesting topic tonight.

Biblical unity. Is everybody just geared up, excited for this one? I am.

Awesome. I'm going to have to find a different background because it's not working with so many people, but that's good.

That's a good thing. We've not had this big of a group in a while. This is fantastic.

How about the crown? That's pretty good. We'll go with the crown. Tyler, is your background where it shows all the links between Old Testament and New Testament promises?

It is. I like that graphic. It's pretty cool. It is so cool.

I just turned back to look at it like it was here. That's how good the background is.

Well, we're going to be talking about biblical unity tonight and have a fantastic group with us.

I'm thankful for all you brothers. So let's jump in. The first question is, what is biblical unity?

I phrased it as what is true biblical unity because I think there's a faux unity out there.

There's an attempt. There's probably a sincere heart in attempting to strive for unity, but I think we've missed the mark in some way.

So we want to know what true biblical unity is from you all's perspective as you study

Scripture, as you've walked in ministry. What is true biblical unity? Then we'll tackle that second part of that question.

Can I say a couple things first? Yes, sir. Because you phrased it, what is true biblical unity?

I think there are times where knowing what the counterfeit is is helpful in better understanding what the true thing is.

I was actually thinking about this today as I recorded Bread of the Word today with the Tower of Babel.

Because they were very unified in what they set out to do. The exact wording is, let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven and let us make a name lest we be scattered upon the face of the whole earth.

Their whole motivation for building that tower was to keep themselves together and to make a name for themselves.

But it was a unity that was founded upon rebellion to God. It was a unity that was founded upon being the arbiter of their own fate.

But then you skip over to the next chapter and God makes himself known to Abram. And what does he say?

He says, I will make your name great. He takes the motivation from Babel that was rooted in rebellion against God and he turns it on its head.

And so he tells Abraham, I'm going to make your name great. I'm going to make you a blessing to many people.

And that just paves the way for what God continues to unveil through Israel and through eventually the church.

That there's this idea that God is bringing together people for something great. But that great thing brings glory to God, not to themselves.

And so when God is bringing together the church, when we talk about having a unified church, it is a unity that brings glory to God.

I agree. I think true biblical unity is going to be focused around the gospel because it's in the second part of the question, the clarifying question.

It starts out, what is true biblical unity? What role does the

Bible play in our unity? Is there a difference in between what we are attempting to do and ecumenicism?

Now as anybody that watches this will know that a lot of us are from different perspectives.

Me and Josh pick at each other all the time. Me and Elias pick at each other. Me and Tyler, Dan, everybody is from a different space.

Now ecumenicism says we're going to lay aside all of those differences and we're just going to get along no matter what.

But I think true biblical unity is focused solely on the gospel but while yet having these distinctions.

We're going to be so focused on Christ and what he's done and by grace through faith in Christ.

So gospel focused that the other secondary issues, the other things, they're still going to be there but not something that we're willing to kick each other out of the kingdom for.

Yeah I think one of the differences between true biblical unity and ecumenicism.

Troy I think I actually wrote down almost exactly what you said before we started. Ecumenicism wants to, it's unity at the cost of truth.

So it's compromise on core doctrines with people that we confess by and large are out of bounds.

They are following a false gospel. You can't have unity with Mormons.

You can't have unity with Jehovah's Witnesses. And you can't have unity with Rome if they continue on the path that they've been on.

Well the path they were on was consistent. They've left that path and I don't know what's going to happen to them now.

They're worse off than they were. But yeah so it's recognizing other believers as genuine believers even though they have different opinions or convictions on secondary and tertiary doctrines.

So having humility and grace towards the secondary and tertiary stuff, recognizing that they are in Christ, that your camp, whatever camp you happen to be in, isn't the only one.

You're not the one true church and everybody else is a heretic. But having humility towards others who view secondary issues differently than you.

Recognize that they're in Christ and that you can have fellowship with them despite differences on secondary and tertiary issues.

Maybe I can clarify one thing with ecumenism, and I'm the one that added that section to it because I think it's a really important subject when it comes to unity, especially in modern day descriptors.

It really is defined as it doesn't require you to compromise, but it expects you to ignore compromise.

In other words, for example, the homosexual agenda in churches today.

Conservatively, we read the Bible and very clearly it's sin. We do not believe in ordaining homosexual priests, those kind of bishops or leaders, those kind of situations like that.

Ecumenism would not expect me to change my belief on that, but it would expect me to cooperate with someone who believes differently as if that's not sin.

So in other words, it's not going to require me to compromise, but it is requiring me to ignore strong conviction in order to get along.

And so what we're trying to say is there is a place that unity is not possible when it moves outside of the orthodoxy of sound biblical teaching.

Is that fair? And I think that's why Robert's first question, I put a circle around biblical unity.

There is a difference in defining unity by scripture around the truth of the gospel versus modern day moves or modern or whims of people.

You know, as as things go along and and system shifts and worlds shifts and culture shift, truth and doctrine does not shift.

And so we can find unity in sound truth and sound doctrine. And so so I think it's not on the docket tonight.

So not to lead us on a rabbit trail, but in order to have a really sound understanding of biblical unity, you also have to have a really sound understanding of biblical separation as well.

The doctrine of separation because you don't practice unity without sound separation as well.

And so I think that's why the water gets murky a lot of times. And that is because people don't know where to divide or not, you know, or where to celebrate something or not.

You know, we all saw this past week the lady in the church there that pleaded with President Trump to have mercy and, you know, on this group.

And she was talking about that. And I've been engaging with people online about that.

And I don't have any problem asking someone in power to be merciful to the weak.

The issue was, for me, the mouth that it came from, because she said in the name of our God. And the reality is her

God is not the same God as my God, because she does not have the God of the Bible. She has a different man made

God, even though she comes under the pretense of Christ. It's not the same.

And so that's that's what's just important with with that effort, because ecumenicalism would expect us to call everyone that says, hey,

I'm a Christian. We just get along, even though that there's some very serious matters that actually divide us that we could not ignore.

Does that make sense? And so biblical unity is, I think, what we're striving for. We're not we're not in this group just striving for ecumenicalism.

You know, that's why we talk about hard things. That's why we talk about hard differences. That's why we push on each other and we we attempt to be humble with one another on those on those subcategories.

But on the main things, there is biblical unity and we all wholeheartedly subject ourselves to the authority of Scripture.

And then we grapple with with correct interpretation and exegesis and hermeneutics and we we labor through that.

So so I just wanted to add why I felt like it's important to add that part of the question. Man versus we're after biblical unity.

But yeah, no. Amen. And definitely. And like, you know, the question of what role does the

Bible play in unity? I believe it's everything. You know, it's it's it's our foundation. You know, God's word.

You know, we believe, you know, we are standing on his truth. Right. This this word is is infallible.

It's the inherent word of God. And so when you have brothers coming together and they have their differences, immediately they go to the scriptures to stand on God's truth.

And, you know, they would have some differences, but they know it's the truth that they unite on, which is the gospel.

And I know that's a question more down the line. But, yeah, you know, so one thing for me is, you know, as an

Anglican. Is that, you know, we pray the common prayer, which is basically not 100 percent, 90, 90 to 95 percent scripture.

We saturate ourselves with the word because we want to pray the word. We read the daily office. And so when and that that is just constantly having

God's word in our thoughts, in our mouths, in our deeds. Right.

So when when when striving for unity, you to hold each of each one of us accountable, we use the word.

We use God's word to hold us together. It is if without without without that foundation, we have we have nothing.

Let me put some things in here real quick. I want to make this clarification for anybody who's looking in on the

Truth and Love Network, the Labor's podcast, the Labor's conference, which if you haven't registered for, please go to labor's conference dot com and register.

We will we would love to spend time with you at that conference. But if anybody is looking in on us and they may say, well, this is their particular niche, everybody has their niche.

This is this is their niche that they're trying to, you know, push, push unity.

They're trying to push this to push that. And and we kind of we kind of hammered through that recently.

And I wanted to make that clarification that unity, unity is not our primary goal here.

Our primary goal here together is to glorify God, to exalt Christ and his gospel and share that gospel.

Expose the word and that unity, I believe, is a fruit of what the

Holy Spirit does in us. It's not something that we can muster up and do on our own initiative on with our within our own power.

It has to come from the Holy Spirit. It's a fruit of what he does in our life. So it's not our niche. It's not our ultimate goal.

We've not intentionally sought out Anglicans to come be unified with us. The Anglicans just keep showing up.

It's the work of the Lord, it's the work of the Spirit. And so I just wanted to clarify that if anybody's looking in on us.

And the other thing is I wanted to see from if you guys have had the same experiences of pulling from what

Pastor Jonathan was saying about biblical unity and the doctrine of separation. From my experience in church life,

I think one of the places where I've seen that we've gone off the rails is there's this local church unity or denominational unity to such a degree that I can't associate on secondary issues that I can't associate with somebody who is a partial preterist, who is a

Presbyterian, who is an Anglican. There's this local church loyalty, there's this denominational loyalty that has such a tight grip that I'm not seeking true biblical unity,

I'm seeking local church or denominational unity. Have you guys seen or experienced that? Oh yeah, 100%.

I think every Baptist does. Definitely, not just a

Baptist thing, but I think that's pretty common in so many of these denominations is that we kind of stick over here.

Almost like it's the brand, we've got to keep the brand intact because people that know how to teach the

Bible are Presbyterian. Or they're this, or they're that. If I go to my buddies that are over at the local seminary in my town, most of the people they're listening to are going to be the same doctrinal -ism as their professors.

So when I put that, I shared a video in our little private chat this week from a guy who does theology with puppets, and the guy's

Pentecostal. I'm not Pentecostal, but I thought he was great. I thought that guy was bringing some fire.

But there's so many people that I've come across that we've got to have everything lined up exactly like me.

But that's loyalty to a brand. It's loyalty to my preferred -ism as opposed to, as you said, loyalty to what

Christ is building. I think it's interesting that whenever someone does get plugged into a church, and that this is not necessarily a bad thing, that as they're under the word and someone is expositing

Scripture and teaching and all of this stuff, that as they're growing up, maturing in their faith, that they're going to have that type of bent to them.

But one thing that that does do is create an echo chamber. And so we all kind of end up in this group of, oh, well, here are the brothers that I pray with, that I serve with, that I'm fellowshipping with, that are at my local church, that I'm plugged in with.

They're calling me throughout the week. I'm calling them. And a lot of times, they're at the same church.

They're very, very, very like -minded. And so you begin in this echo chamber, and so then the issues that you're dealing with are issues that everyone in your echo chamber are dealing with to where someone may not know what's going on in the

Anglican world right now. Someone may not know about the local non -denom or something going on in the

SBC because it means nothing to them. And so really to get outside of your echo chamber is to be confronted with a whole bunch of stuff from everywhere.

And it takes a minute to work through, but it's often looked at as very weird in a bunch of mindsets.

It's just as something like, oh, well, you talk to these people and those people and those people.

And it's like, yeah, yeah, I got them confronting me on a group chat all the time. It's crazy.

Now, I do think it is something to note that biblical unity is harder than unbiblical unity, more often than not.

That ecumenicalism is a bit more thoughtless at times because we don't – it's unbranded unity.

It's just we have to be together. But when you start getting the Baptists and Pentecostals and the

Presbyterians together, there's a bit of natural pushback that's a little tricky to work with.

And we've kind of navigated a lot of that in the two years I've been here. And then we brought in Anglicanism with, like,

Elias and now we got Jeremiah, and that's a whole other hurdle because these are people we didn't talk about in VeggieTales.

This is not the brand of Christianity that so many of us know. And so this idea that we can be together is oftentimes very new, very novel, very unfamiliar.

And so the idea of being unified is a fight sometimes. I think we've – we can all attest to that to some degree that to be unified is a fight.

It is laborious. It is work. This is why there's so much language in the New Testament about striving for unity, striving for peace, insofar as it depends on you.

This is not the default position. This is something we're fighting for because the church is beautiful.

So talking real quick on the doctrine of separation, there's really only two specific things that we should be willing to divide over, and that is first -tier doctrinal gospel issues.

If there is another gospel preached, as Paul said, by angels or charismatic preachers or whoever else, if another gospel is preached, then we should separate from them.

So I think that's – number one is defining the gospel very clearly.

And then the second thing is over sin. Like that is how – what the

Bible describes as sin. If a denomination, church, or group stops defining biblical sin as sin and begins to justify a person's sinful lifestyle as normal versus contrary to God's design, then we don't condone sin.

So those are two really clear areas that become very definitive things.

Then after that, you really do have to be like what Tyler said, striving for.

And I want to echo what Robert said. Jesus said this, that you will know that you're my disciples by how you love one another, right?

And so really the first question we should ask is do we actually love one another?

Do I love this guy? Do I love Dan? Like when

Dan or Elias or whatever we're talking about, the

Eucharist or ordinances versus sacraments or whatever. Like the first question

I have to ask is when my love for you is dependent upon how you answer. That's not a good

Christian standard. My love for you and your love for me is because Christ first loved us and now has commanded us to love one another that we can demonstrate to the world that we're disciples.

So that in even major very important issues, if we have disagreement, the world can still look and say, wow, those guys, man, they don't act like they like each other if they saw all of our text feeds all the time, right?

But then at the end of the day, it's like we see each other, and it's like a bear hug. And we love each other and we care about each other's families and those kind of situations.

And so that's how we demonstrate unity. And so it is not something created, but it is an outflow of our love.

It is an outflow of the love that's within us. And it's demonstrating that we're truly disciples of Jesus first and followers of him first.

And so I think that's echoing a little bit of what Robert was trying to say earlier, that the

Holy Spirit does this. And it is biblical unity is definitely a product of labor.

You know, I think it's important whenever you brought up our text thread, right?

You see us going into it. You know, how many of y 'all have had slugfest with your brothers?

The brothers will fight harder than they will people down the road, but the brothers will fight together as well.

You know, because we have already worked through the first step, right?

The gospel situations, right? That first level virgin birth, inerrancy of Scripture, the role of Scripture.

Since we have worked through all of that stuff, now there is that.

We work on the secondary issues, and sometimes it does get ugly. But there is always that unity that we're striving for.

Dan, let me pull you here on the second question. And I'm going to add to it a little bit. It says, why is unity important in the body of Christ?

And, of course, the body of Christ is comprised of visible, militant, invisible, local, all of those things.

Why is unity important in the body of Christ? And tied to that,

I mentioned earlier there's this sense of local church denominational loyalty at the expense of excluding others, not wanting to associate with others.

But we can't forget that we make a covenant using that language with our local church.

We do have a loyalty to our brothers and sisters, especially if you're a pastor or elder in a church.

Our local church comes first. And then these other ministries are kind of on the side.

Our local church comes first. So there is a sense of loyalty there. So why is unity important in the local church and then outside the local church?

And how do we lead toward that in our churches?

I know that was a lot. So just take whatever you want and go with it. Can you put that in shorthand for me? I'm battling a cold, so I've got limited brain power this evening.

Just take whatever you want and go with it. Sure. Biblical unity is important because what it does is it shows the glory of God in the salvation of people.

What I mean by that is this. God calls us to himself, gives us his life, his righteousness, takes away our sins.

We become united with Christ. And becoming united with Christ, we can become united with one another as well.

Psalm 133 says, Behold how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.

It describes it as an anointing of oil that comes upon the head like Aaron runs down Aaron's beard. It describes it as the dew of Hermon that comes down from the mountains of Zion.

Then it says this, it says, For there Yahweh commanded the blessing. And what was that blessing?

Life forever. So unity is important because we've all been called to that same mountain, called to come together looking to Christ.

So that's important in the large scale. It's also important in your local church perspective because that's where you get to see the rubber meet the road, so to speak.

So we just had a young guy join our church. Two weeks ago, he took his membership vows.

He took vows to uphold the scriptures, to believe in proper doctrine, to accept correction if he needed to.

And at the same time, we made a commitment to him that if we see him stepping out of line, we're going to come and put our arm around him and say, hey, man, that's not the way to go.

The reason why it's so important for us to be biblically unified in the local church is that it's one of the ways by which

God has called us to help each other out, to guide each other along the way. So that if myself or somebody else is going through a rough time, we can be encouraged.

If we need correction, we've got our brothers that know us and care for us that can do those things for us. So it's it's it's practical, but it also shows the love and care of God that in while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us so that while my brothers and sisters in the local church are being scoundrels,

I'm still going to love them as Christ loved the church. I don't know if that answered any or all your questions or or what, but that's that's what

I got for now. Fantastic. If I can add something real quick.

So because we're on part two, right? Question. Why is the unity important in the body of Christ? Yeah. One is because of Christ himself commands us to be one body, right?

To be to be unified. And I'm looking through the book on prayer real quick to twenty nineteen. And there's a prayer actually that says literally for the unity of all

Christian people. For anyone knowing the twenty nineteen, the prayer goes like this. I'll just say it quickly.

Oh God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only savior, the prince, the prince peace.

Give us grace to take heart the grave dangers we are in through our many divisions.

So he's saying there's many with divisions. There's danger that comes with that. Deliver your church from all enmity and prejudice and everything that hinders us from godly union.

And as there is one body in one spirit, one hope of our calling, one

Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of us all.

So make us all to be of one heart and of one mind united in holy bond of truth and peace of faith and love.

That with one voice may give you praise through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the

Holy Spirit. One God everlasting glory. Amen. Amen. So because one, of course, commanded, but also it's it's who

God is. God, God is one. Right. And so in perfect unity, right.

The triune God is one in perfect unity, as a prayer said, with the Holy Spirit and God the father. And so therefore, his church must be one and unified and based on his truth.

Where am I going to find that in my copy of the book? A common prayer. So I have the twenty nineteen. So in the twenty nineteen, they have additional prayers.

It's under for the unity of all Christian people. You might have it under maybe just unity in certain common prayers.

But yeah, so twenty nineteen, I find it more easy to navigate through. I may need to go to that.

Yes. I'm not Anglican, but I do utilize it from time to time when I'm not pulling out the

Psalter. But they have plenty of bookmarks in that particular copy. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. It's great. Anyway, I think one of the mindsets that we need to avoid is is this that.

I think we all believe, whether it be from a post -millennial mindset, that it's going to happen here on Earth or eventually in heaven, we're going to be unified in our theology as as we're glorified.

But we all believe that the spirit is leading us to that. But I think the mindset that we we need to avoid and will be helpful to avoid is that this idea of and I want to use a term that we

I think it's in our circle here. It's used jokingly, but my denomination is is the superior one.

So when the spirit does unify us, everyone will be Baptist or everyone will be

Anglican or everyone will be Presbyterian. I think that mindset is something good to avoid.

If if the spirit leads us to all be Anglican. I need to be open to the spirit and say that I'm only human.

I don't have it all right. Or we're all going to be Presbyterian or we're all going to be

Baptist. That's not for me to determine.

I want to be one as the spirit leads us to be one. Anybody have any thoughts on that?

And what are some other common barriers that we see among believers to unity?

I think what you just hit on was humility, being being humble in in even your thought process of of seeing your key theological position.

Yeah, every one of us thinks that we are right in Scripture, that that this is how

Scripture is to be interpreted. But it's having the humility after learning that you're you know, you're wrong on so many things, knowing that I could

I could be wrong on on X, Y and Z. And I'm not willing to make this stand falsely.

Yeah, I I've been wrestling with this for a couple of years.

And I've I've changed my not so much changed my position, but I've changed my outlook because I've got a lot of friends.

I've got a handful of Lutheran friends, which was not something I really had a big big exposure to growing up.

And now I've got a couple of Anglicans that I'm conversing with.

So talking to other believers that aren't in your camp, like your very narrow camp, whatever that is,

Post Mill, Reformed Baptist, Presbyterian, whatever it is. Talking to believers from other streams that are genuine believers that understand the gospel.

They're not they're not preaching a false gospel. And I'm in another group chat and there's there's a handful of Anglicans and a couple

Lutherans in there as well. And so after sitting back for a couple of years and just observing, listening to how they interpret scripture, looking at the scriptural justifications that they use for their various doctrines and realizing like that's that's not

I don't agree. But that's not that's not unfair. Like they're not out of out of bounds in like an orthodoxy sense.

Like they do have a scriptural justification. It's not how I would read that passage, but they have one.

You know what I mean? It's a secondary issue or a tertiary issue. And realizing that there there there are genuine believers who don't believe what you believe.

And there have been millions of believers that did not believe what you believe going back 2000 years.

Right. Like that. That's as much as I think I'm right on everything that I believe.

I'm pretty sure Paul was not. If Paul came back from from heaven today,

I don't think he would be a dyed in the wool reformed Baptist. I think he would have some some opinions that I would be like, really?

That's that's what you that's what you meant. Like, I can't think of what they would be. You know what I mean? Like Doug Wilson has a quote that says,

I know I'm not right on everything. I know

I'm wrong on some things, but I don't think I am. There's something to that effect where like, I understand empirically or at the root of the matter that I'm wrong about.

I can't think of what they are. I couldn't say like, I believe this and this is wrong. No one intentionally believes things that they think are incorrect.

I've got blind spots. I just don't know where they are. Exactly. Yeah, it's it's having the humility to say

Christianity is not my singular understanding of it.

Like there's there's genuine believers from other camps, and we need to be gracious and humble when dealing with with other

Christians. You know, like like Elias, for example, if you would say,

Josh, you want to go hang out with a bunch of Anglicans over here?

You know, there's a bunch of Anglicans of this, you know, little pub over here. You want to go hang out? No, like, like,

I don't know. But being able to talk to them and hear what they believe and see the reasons behind their various doctrines and customs, it helps you get perspective on the faith.

And Paul talks a lot about is it in I think he opens Colossians with commending them for their their faith in Lord Jesus and the love for all the saints.

Right. And all the saints does not just mean all the Reformed Baptists or all the postmillennials. Like it's all the saints.

And while I think I'm right on all these things, it just because somebody else doesn't agree with me doesn't mean that they're not they're not in the kingdom.

And we need to be gracious and charitable toward towards other believers on those secondary and tertiary issues.

Yeah. One thing that's really important, guys, and I think, Robert, I think many of the old guys here tonight wouldn't.

Is that a safe assumption? Don't let the beard give it away. That's what

I was going to say. Mine's looking pretty white in the podcast. I looked in the mirror earlier. Mine didn't look this white until you get on camera.

You know, but, you know, I've been in full time ministry for I'm in my 27th year now and and been a full time lead pastor for over 20 years now.

And so so when you start walking through things like that, one of the humble things that we all have to agree.

I hope that you are not in the same place that you were five years ago, theologically.

And I hope that you will not be in the same place you are five years in the future, theologically, that we are all in a journey constantly.

And and I can remember major spiritual formation times in my life.

And that's one thing that we all love to quote early church fathers. But I've been

I've been actually looking and challenging people to quote church fathers in the context of the time that they were at that time.

Because you read guys like Augustine from the beginning and the journey of his faith.

Jonathan Edwards from the beginning to the journey of his faith. John Calvin from the beginning to the end of his faith.

Martin Luther, like if you read them, it's not that they're necessarily inconsistent on very principled things, but you see the variations and how they approach different subjects and text from early writings in their lives to later writings in their lives and things of that nature.

And I think it's really important that we give each other that grace to say, this is where I'm at today.

This is where I'm at right now. You know, on secondary issues like that's why I say all the time in eschatology.

This is where I am right now. You know, and and but the fact is, I want to be humble enough to say, but the truth of the matter is,

I don't know. And I think that's one of the things that that that Christians have not been very humble enough to say is,

I don't know, because there are things we do know. There are absolute non -negotiables that we know that the

Holy Spirit has bore witness to us that we would die over. Those are the things we're unified on.

And those unify us above all other things that, you know what, this is where I'm at today. I like this.

This is speaking to me. This is ministering to me. You know, I try not to get all wound up sometimes, but I used to get like really hopped up over Reformed theology and and the doctrines of grace and like, man,

I love to just, I mean, peel people's hair back with it. And then

I find out, man, people aren't really excited about that as I am. You know, and so.

So what are they excited about? How can you minister to them where they're at and not make it about where I'm at, but in the body of Christ, how we grow, how we're growing together and then applaud people when they're excited about something and not like try to extinguish their fire because they may be a little over here, a little over there.

Wisdom will tell us and teach us in time, as the Bible tells us, that it is the Holy Spirit that guides us into all manners of truth.

And so some of us are agents of the Holy Spirit to help guide and correct and like shepherd.

But at the end of the day, we're persuaded not just with the words of men or the discipleship of one another alone, that it really is.

We're persuaded in the heart by the truth of the Holy Spirit. And and so that helps us maintain a spirit of unity as we're kind and and and gentle with one another through that.

And I think we're even get into some of the other questions, really, as we're talking through some of this stuff, just just talking.

Yeah. Yeah, I think just to speak on a real quick common barrier. And I think Josh even spoke on it where, like, you know,

I think staying too long in our own echo chambers. And what

I mean by that is where, like, if you're constantly just like. With Anglicans or whatever, if you're a reformer, you're constantly in the reformer camp and you're in.

So when whenever you encounter someone who is not that the thing you are, it's foreign.

And sometimes where I think you even see a common here, sometimes it's theological laziness, right?

Refusing to look into the other position. Right. And when you're so much into your own echo chamber, you don't you don't even desire to look into the other position again.

Because for people, for some people, if it's if they don't know it, they tend to get angry at it.

Like, I don't know what you're saying. I don't like it. And I'm getting angry at you. And so because they've been so stuck in their own echo chamber.

That's what happens. Right. Everything else seems foreign to a certain point. Do you guys have anything in your denomination that you would look at and say.

I'm in this denomination because background history, I'm comfortable where God's called me.

But there's definitely things that I disagree with. Anybody would anybody say that, feel that.

Yeah, I'm one of the I am one of two pedo baptists in my church. Yeah, I'm in a predominantly dispensational credo baptist church.

I am I am the black sheep in several respects. I am not in the church that I'm at because it's reformed or because of this, because of that.

Hope Chapel does not have a brand denominationally. My lead pastor is a five pointer, but the chairman of the elders is

Armenian. The church he was at before hope actually was a little twitchy about him being an elder because he was

Armenian. And so there's a lot of a lot of diversity in our body.

And it's it's funky sometimes. But it's it's beautiful to watch because you've got.

Calvinists and Armenians on the board together leading the church in one direction for the glory of God.

But there there are definitely things that are not tailored to my preference in the church

I'm at. I'm the one guy that wears a tie. Of course, I'm going to stand out. I just think

I'm a little more traditional when it comes to worship, not quite to the extent of the reform.

Not the reform, the the regular principle of worship, not quite to the full extent there. But, yeah, maybe we could do a little less hell song and a little more just singing the

Psalms. Maybe we don't need to eat a drum kit. But I'm at a church that doesn't necessarily see it that way.

That's OK. So now we're getting into as well as barriers. And that's and I'm glad you said that,

Tyler. I think some of the barriers that divide us a lot of times are preference and comforts and those kinds of things versus real doctrinal truths.

And sometimes the things that cause us to seek and continue to strive in disagreements and unity is still also comforts and preferences and and culture and where we're brought up.

And it's it's it's meeting through through that ministry. It's meeting some kind of spiritual need that God is is using that ministry to do that is what

I'm trying to say. And so it can be very self -centered of selfish preferences or silly things that are very surfacy.

But other times it's not. It's really the body of Christ reaching a lost world.

And so there there are things that maybe a Presbyterian church would offer someone that that God is going to use to bring to Christ that a

Baptist church wouldn't or a Baptist church would offer something that a Presbyterian doesn't. It's what God's going to use to bring to Christ or so on and so forth down the line of denominational things.

And so I don't I don't necessarily think denominationalism is all bad. I want to make sure we say that even though it does create some divides and it creates branding and it postures people up.

It would be a really boring world if everyone looked just like me or just like Robert or talk just like Dan or, you know, or whatever.

No, I mean, God has diversity. And why does God have diversity in his body? Because he's reaching a diverse world.

And in the book of Revelation, it tells us that for the throne of God, it's going to be every tribe, tongue, nation.

You know, every every creed is going to be standing before the Lord singing praise into that unified in that.

And that's when ultimate unity will be will be displayed. But it looks very different when

I go to Honduras and do ministry in Honduras or in Haiti or in Africa.

It looks very different than it does in America, you know, because their preference is talk about music and regulative.

They ain't got no idea. They got speakers that are like 24 feet high in a 20 by 20 room.

And they're like, you can hear the music a mile away, you know, and and that's that's how they throw down, you know.

But Jesus is there. I mean, God is there. The spirit of God is there. The word of God is there. And nobody goes in there.

And it's like you guys are doing it all wrong because you're not burning incense and X, Y, Z. You know what

I mean? Like it's like there's all different things that God is using to reach people across the world.

And so I think that in itself also is a heart of unity as the gospel goes forth. So let me ask you this question,

Pastor Jonathan. So definitionally, when it comes to the doctrine of separation, there's these first degree issues where when we talk about the doctrine of separation, that's that's true separation.

I must separate from you. But when we're talking about denominations and I know

I've already spoke on this, the bad side of the loyalty that we have or the bias that we have because of our denomination.

But from what you were talking about, there's another sense of separation that we that we have amongst ourselves that because of secondary issues, it's not always easy in the sense of the local church to to work together.

And maybe it's because of what you're talking about. God God uses this church to bring this person to himself.

But we don't separate from them in that other sense to where they're they're not

Christian. They're not believers. We don't associate, but we separate to a degree because we're not seeing eye to eye completely.

And we can accomplish things better with a little bit of separation while the spirit is working on.

Well, I think. Yeah, I agree. But I think it's when we talk about that kind of separation.

I don't think that has to be separation that ought to be a form of celebration, but we've made that separation.

OK, so I don't want to drag us into a a doctrinal discussion.

So let me use this as an illustration without dragging us into cessationism and continuation.

OK, but what I'll say is in verse 12, he's talking about the body of Christ.

And we often think about in that body when he's talking about 1st Corinthians 12. We're talking about that Paul's potentially talking about a local church.

And I think it can be applied in a local church. But I think in 1st Corinthians 12, he's talking about the body of Christ.

And as members, he gives each one gives several as he will. Speaking of the Holy Spirit that he said that he gives those gifts.

And so when we're talking about the body of Christ, then then you can't just step over the local church body.

But in Western culture, we make it so individualistic that it's always only talking about me. Well, I think there is the case for that in the local church.

He's talking about individual people giving gifts several as he wills. But I think there's also a greater case that in the body of Christ, there's local churches that are that are or are a stone in the body of Christ in the living stones being built up.

And that local church will have very unique giftedness that is gifted by the

Holy Spirit that ought to be celebrated. That others may or may not have that specific gift. Some have just this unique ability to to reach the broken and the destitute.

They can they they have a unique tolerance to be able to to minister to alcoholics, to say, or drug addicts or those kind of situations like that.

Other churches don't have that capacity without it just disrupting their whole system.

Now, we can get into that is right or wrong. It's not for us really to make those judgments immediately without knowing someone.

But some churches may have that gift. Others may be very astute theologically, you know, that that they they they are just extremely educated and astute.

And so then so they're reaching a group or this group over here is reaching people that if you start talking about, you know, 10 letter word, 10, 10 dollar words, the guy here on the street could care less.

Like he could care less about the word ecumenicalism. Like he's just trying to get his next fix or get off of drugs.

You know, they could probably care less even what we're talking about tonight. You know, like but some churches are able to do both.

And others are going to listen to not be like, wow, I'm really interested in that and really want to find that.

And so even among podcasts or whatever it may be, there are separations. But that shouldn't be the doctrine of separation.

That should really should be something to be celebrated. And we all have to work through that is can we celebrate someone else's success?

So in order to make ourselves feel better, though, we typically try to tear down somebody else's success because it, you know, we want to justify why we are how we are.

And at the end of the day, it can be just as simple as, you know what? Look how God's made this group of people to work together for his glory.

Look, he's made this other group of people to work together for his glory, this other group of people to work together for his glory.

But at the end of the day, and I want to move us to this question down here as far as like, what role does does the gospel really play?

Man, the gospel is is what ought to unify us. Like that is the one commission that is the non -negotiable to go to all the world to make disciples, going to all the world and preach the gospel while all the things that I've commanded you multiply.

We see that played out through the Book of Acts. Like that is that's the normal Christianity. But then how that's done, you know, we should be able to celebrate those differences that we're talking about.

That makes sense. And so so possible other barriers between individuals and individual local churches would be comparison and competition.

Correct. Hundred percent. And want to make myself feel better about about even where I'm currently at.

You know, yeah. Comparison competition is a lack of celebration of one another.

I mean, are we going to like if we had a church that we don't agree with theologically, but then they they have, you know, a hundred people make a profession of faith and enter into baptism and walk through baptism, all those kind of things.

Is that something we celebrate or do we immediately begin to ask questions? And it's not wrong to ask questions. Get me wrong.

I mean, like, is it something that we're going to get a benefit of a doubt that the Holy Spirit's doing it and God is really sovereign?

Or are we going to say, well, that's just a bunch of false conversions. Amen. And an extreme on either side of that,

I think is wrong. Does that make sense? I think there's like a healthy level of skepticism in our modern day time.

But at the same time, I praise God. It's obvious the Holy Spirit's doing something. You know what

I mean? So it's like so whether there's emotionalism involved or or what, you know, there's a lot of people that got born again through Billy Graham crusades, even though I don't agree with altar call in that manner.

You know, but at the same time, there was a lot of false, false professions made. So sovereignty.

Well, and to the point of what some of the guys were saying a while ago, if you stay within your echo chamber, then you're you're going to tend to fall within one of the two ditches where you're completely skeptical or you're completely falling for every movement that comes along.

Correct. Right. Hey, Dan, a quick question, just so we can make illustration of this.

You got it during the church this past Sunday, gave his vows of membership and covenant membership.

How long did he walk through that process to become a member? Man, it's been a while.

Just a ballpark. I mean, not exactly. But I mean, it's not like he walked up on Sunday morning like, hey, guys, I want to come a member. No, it was somewhere between five and seven weeks.

But he'd been attending the church for a few months even before that, before we shut him down. Sure. So so Dan has in their congregation has a a longer process.

All right. Praise the Lord. Is it less something to be celebrated for a church that would say church membership is the beginning of that person's discipleship?

And it's defining church membership is important. Right. And all those kind of things. But I'm just saying so in some

Baptist circles, someone's born again. They receive Christ and they they walk through conversation and their church membership is their baptism.

So then they get baptized and that immediately makes them a member of the church. They may have not been through the same creed or understanding as what you guys would have trained this guy with.

But it's something that they'll get afterwards. So can we equally celebrate a guy who's been through a longer process?

And the end result is church membership or another. Can we celebrate a person that the beginning of their process is church membership and discipleship followers?

Can we equally celebrate that God is bringing people into the kingdom? We celebrate someone that's born again.

That's right. Does that make sense? So so that's all I'm trying to say.

And I think the Bible gives a lot of room for all of those kind of circumstances, you know, because you do have processes in the

Bible and then you've got Damascus Road moments in the Bible and both. God is doing it, you know.

So anyways, sorry, I don't mean to lecture on that. But I just I just I just see that's a major barrier, like Rob was saying.

And and so so when it comes to separation, I think those are things sometimes that are we are creating an unbiblical separation versus something that should be celebrated.

I got a question just for all you brothers. How many of y 'all were saved in a completely different denomination than you are currently in?

All right. That's that's that's most so. I mean, it's you know, who was saved in like non -denominational.

You know, who was saved in like an IFB type church or or something along those lines, more traditional.

The thing is, like, obviously, God has been at work throughout the systems and we are not where we we were or came up in or first got into right after the

Lord saved us. But yet we so much get into something whenever we leave one area, we become against that area.

You know, like if you moved from Tennessee and went to California, you know,

I was tired of the hills or or, you know, that weather's awful, it's hot and cold or, you know, we constantly want to backpedal on where we've been.

But just the fact that the Lord used that. Shows his his sovereign hand in all of it.

I preached on that one time, brother, because the Lord convicted me of that. I was very, very angry when

I became when the Lord opened my eyes to to the doctrines of grace, if you will, or to to the beauty of grace.

I was I was ticked off at everybody in my childhood because I'd never been taught anything.

I've been taught a very kind of. You felt like you'd been lied to, did you? Yeah, I felt like I'd been taught a very sort of flippant gospel that, you know,

God suspends the truth of the gospel in the air and it's up to me to reach and get it. So so I had been in the performance trap forever, you know, and and then

I got the dose of grace and I'm like, holy cow. There was so much power and freedom and rest.

And I mean, and dude, and I was mad. I'm telling you, dude, I went back to deacons and to my dad, who is my pastor most of my life and other pastors.

And like I would just let them have it. And dude, the Holy Spirit convicted me and I wept in a sermon

Sunday morning as I stood and repented publicly of how upon the shoulders of those men that most of them had eighth grade education.

That I did believe on the son of God who died on a cross for my sin and rose from the dead. You know, and so so, you know, it's it's a beautiful thing.

And so it is. It is. So I'm very different from where I was raised. I wouldn't say

I was I .F .B., but we were old school Southern Baptists. OK, like like old school mountain, like Appalachian Southern Baptists, you know, and and King James pretty much only not.

Even though we never like make that the law, that was like understood. And so but anyways,

I can remember when I got my first copy of the non inspired version and I was like, like, holy cow.

That's the end. I mean, you don't know. But you know, thought, oh, my gosh, you know,

I didn't know what what in the world would happen. But. But that is it's how

Christian unity gets tore down is is through, I guess, the last thing I'll say, trying to echo this is elitism.

You know that when we do feel like that our denomination or our education or our study makes us elite, then then all of a sudden we there is a different tier of Christianity.

And that happens in multiple denominations. It happens in the charismatic movement. If you have certain gifts, that's the proof that you really got the

Holy Ghost or in the rest of your kind of you're just in waiting. We don't know the rest of you.

You know, somewhere there's some kind of tiered, you know, in in Southern Baptist realms right now.

It's still the name doctor in front of your name, like somehow makes you, you know, a little better than everybody else.

You know that that you they will look at a young man who who maybe has the power of God on his life and anointing to preach the word.

But they don't have the right credentials, you know, so. So there's another elitist and so on and so forth.

You could go through any category and find those elitists. And then even among ourselves, sometimes we're trying to portray what we've been seeing.

Other leaders do, and as a result, it does, it creates major fractures because we think we're a little bit more elite, a little bit, a little bit above, you know.

And so, you know, anyways, since we're at our time,

I want to do this for the sake of everybody who may be listening or watching. I want to read the rest of the questions in case you want to reach out to us and you have any questions about these questions or clarification or you would like further discussion on any of these questions for everybody's sake.

I want to share with the questions, but then I want to give each of you a chance to answer.

One, I think, is extremely important in this list. So Jonathan mentioned the next one.

How does the gospel create unity? What is the difference between unity and uniformity? How can churches promote unity and diversity?

What role does forgiveness play in biblical unity? How can believers balance truth and love in pursuit of unity?

What role does leadership play in building unity and what our practice does for cultivating unity in our local church and beyond?

So this will be the last question, and I'd love to hear from you guys what your thoughts are on this, because I think this question probably should be up at the top.

Number seven, what role does forgiveness play in biblical unity?

I've done a lot of talking. So we have to answer that question, number seven?

I mean, the floor is open. I was looking at number eight, actually.

How can we believers balance truth and love in pursuit of unity? OK, go ahead. And the reason

I was looking at that is because and I think I shared this with you guys in the chat. I'm actually going through a study of director's history of a personal study of Anglican is

Anglicans and what we as classical Anglicans hold to, but also, you know, dialogues from one another.

And when one guy I mentioned actually, I just recently bought a book, Richard Hooker. So he's he's a reformed

Anglican, and he's known for being having responding to the

Presbyterians, right? Or the Puritans for say, and also the Romanists in his time.

Right. He was more in the late 1500s. I think he actually died in the year 1600. But so he's a reformed

Anglican, but he's responding to things that he disagrees with Puritans on or Presbyterians on.

They're reformed, too, but yet there's disagreements on. And so he's responding to certain things where he holds to hold to these with his conviction as truth.

But yet he's reaching out in love. Right. And try to pursue unity.

Right. Because they share a commonality in being reformed and stuff like that. Whereas, you know,

I look at that and it kind of motivates me, especially with our group. Right. Where? Yeah.

You know, majority of us, not all of us are reformed, but majority of us are reformed. But also, even though we're reformed, we don't feel like, you know, me,

I'm an Anglican. We're formed Baptist throughout church history. If you were to go in the 1600s and say

Baptists and Anglicans will be able to come together in unity and truth and love. They'll they'll look at you sideways because, you know, there was great persecution on both sides.

Right. And so. Right. They were Baptist even. I've heard a story where a

Baptist was willing to drown her babies because she wouldn't let a Presbyterian baptize them. It was.

Yeah. And, you know, you have type of craziness going on throughout church history. But I think it's through truth and love and the

Holy Spirit working through the body. And we we we are at an age now where you do have

Presbyterians, non -denominational Pentecostal. Right. The nomination

I was saved and we do have a Pentecostal brother within our group. He's not here at the current moment. And you can you have us all seeking truth and love in unity.

Right. So I think that's into balance that it kind of goes back to the fourth question.

How does the gospel create unity? It's because of the gospel we're able to pursue and balance truth and love in unity.

I've been doing a word study on gentleness last couple of days. And I've I've had had

Matthew 11 hit me between the eyes the other day. It's a passage

I come back to time and time again on the podcast. Come unto me all that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

He says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. What and what reason is as you give that we should learn of him that I am meek and lowly, that I am gentle and lowly.

That there is something about the gentleness of Christ that we would benefit from learning.

And then I found this interesting little little verse in Second Samuel where David is praising

God and he says, thy gentleness has made me great. We want to talk about what forgiveness does to to unity is we've got to become gentle.

We've got to become more like Christ. And that is not going to come without recognizing that we're not as much like Christ as we could be as we will be.

And so day by day, moment by moment, we are being sanctified. And as we are being sanctified, the church will become more unified.

It will become more beautiful, but it's going to take work. I think on forgiveness and just because I know

Josh really well. You know, and talking about forgiveness is me and Josh are comfortable with getting under each other's skin.

It just is what it is. We, you know, we pick at each other and all the above. And so even, you know, the other day in the in the chat, you know, we're going back and forth.

You know, I think it probably like maybe 20 minutes passes. I'm like, I'm calling this fool. Hey, I love you.

And and it's just, you know, it's. When when

Christ says to the disciples, you know, they ask him how many how many times must we forgive our brother?

You know that that's that's wrong. That's right. That's sinned against us, trespassed against us. Yeah, he says 70 times seven.

Right now, the number is not four hundred and ninety times. Right. It's more spiritual than that is saying continuously.

Right. And so as we're as we're doing this thing that Christ commands us to have, which is fellowship with with other believers.

They're going to wrong you. They're going to get under your skin. They're going to make you mad. You're going to get mad. You're going to lash back out at them.

But but the point is forgiveness. Right. Forgive just as Jesus Christ forgave us.

Right. And he's forgiven us a whole lot more than than any of us have got mad or rift or, you know, angry at each other.

And so forgiveness is going to be a crucial part in the daily walk of of a

Christian's life. It's just it has to be. There's no perfect church. And if you have a church where no one needs forgiven about anything, you're not in close enough fellowship.

I'm just going to I'm just going to throw that out there. That's right. Yeah. You can't put centers in community together and not have toes get stepped on.

It's inevitable. And to the to Rob's question on on forgiveness, you can't have fellowship with each other.

If you're if you're all holding grudges, everybody is is withholding their affection and their even their presence from each other.

How do you have fellowship? If half your congregation won't talk to each other, won't sit next to each other, forgiveness is stressed in the scriptures.

That you have to have forgiveness in order to have unity, especially in the context of the local body.

The people that you are worshiping with and and fellowshipping with regularly, you know, at least once a week.

But any any good church, you're going to like Troy said, me and him, we have a phone call at least once a week.

We're texting back and forth. We're we're making fun of each other's eschatology, you know, regularly.

You don't you don't get that if if Troy says something, then I take offense to it.

And I'm like, you know what? I'm not talking to anyone. Troy's Troy's not my friend anymore. He's not invited to my birthday party in our in our small church of about thirty five people.

That doesn't just affect our fellowship that that affects the mood of the entire worship service.

You know, if if I won't go in the same room as Troy or vice versa, people pick up on that, that that that disrupts the unity of the entire body.

Even if you just have two people that are that are out of fellowship. And it's it's super clear in scripture, you know,

God forgave us the debt that we could not possibly pay. The debt that we owed to God, if you gave us 20 lifetimes, we could not repay that debt.

We could not breach that gap. And God condescended and he forgave us. Just like the parable that Christ told of the wicked servant.

And so if we turn around after being forgiven everything and we we throw our brother in jail because he owes us 20 bucks.

The debt that's not good. You can't you can't do that as a Christian. Right. If you if freely we have received freely, we give we've been forgiven much.

So we also should love much the way we love God because he's forgiven us. But we also love one another because that is that is what the gospel does.

It reconciles man to God, but also man with man.

Paul says in Ephesians 2, if I'm going on too long, just stop me. I've already turned away from it.

But he talks about how Jew and Gentile have been made one in Christ. The divide between Jew and Gentile in the

Old Testament. There was no greater division than the division between the people of God and the pagans.

You couldn't eat with them. You couldn't hardly talk to them. They weren't allowed to come. Even those who were proselytes weren't allowed to actually have full membership, full fellowship at synagogue.

Right. They had they had a certain place they had to stay when they came to the temple. They had the court of the Gentiles. They were outsiders no matter what they did or how much they agreed with with the scripture.

They were outsiders. And Christ came and he removed that division. And at the core of the gospel is forgiveness, is

God's forgiveness of our sins. And if we've been forgiven, then we ought to forgive and love one another.

I was thinking of a scripture. And I'll just say this.

I'll be done. The second Corinthians, right? The the guy that was in sin, horrifically sleeping with his mother in law, all kinds of craziness.

They say, get him out of the church, turn him over to Satan. Yep. He repents and he's in a bunch of sorrow.

Paul writes, writes to them in the second letter to the Corinthians, tell them, you know, restore him to fellowship.

But this second Corinthians, verse 10 says, anyone whom you forgive,

I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, it has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his devices.

And, you know, bitterness and, you know, contentious divisions is a tool of the enemy.

And so, to forgive, right? Upon godly terms, repentance. And, you know, and that's for egregious sin, right?

The restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, lest ye yourself shall be tempted.

You know, that was the hardcore part where we cannot have unity. But yet, we see the ability for unity to be brought back in under repentance, just by forgiveness.

Well, you guys have segued right into the gospel, and I'll share this, and Josh, since you're up there at the top with me, in this conversation,

I thought about this verse. If you love those who love you, or maybe if you think like those who think like you, what credit is that to you?

For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?

For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you?

Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies.

Love those who think differently than you, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.

So how can I have a mentality in the heart to expect nothing in return? And the only thing that I can think of, the only way that I can have that mentality and that heart to not, to love those who think differently than me, to love my enemies, to bend over backwards for someone who is different than me.

The only way that I can have the expectation of nothing in return is to realize that in Christ I have everything.

So we're in one of two positions. We're either in Christ and have everything in Him, or we're apart from Him and have nothing.

And so we would plead with you to reflect on your life and to see where you are in your relationship with God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Are you in a position where you are in Him and have everything in Him? All that you need, all that you could ever ask for, you have in Christ, or are you apart from Him and have nothing?

The only way to be in that position where we have all that we have, all that we need because we are in Christ, and we can have the mindset and the heart where we expect nothing in return from anybody else, the only way we can be in that position is if we heed the call of Christ to recognize that we are sinners, we have sinned against the

Holy God, and that we need to turn in repentance from those sins and turn towards Christ in faith.

Based on Him being God, the

Word become flesh, come down into this earth, took on human flesh, lived a sinless life, died on the cross, bearing the wrath of God for my sins and your sins upon Himself, clearing that debt, and God honoring that, honoring

His life, honoring His sacrifice, and raising Him from the dead. And then

Christ ascended into heaven where He is seated at the right hand of God, the place of honor, the place of authority, where He intercedes for us who are believers and those who call on His name.

And He calls us to believe in His name, to repent and turn from our sins, and put our faith and trust in Him.

And He will not disappoint you if you would turn to Him. And in Him, you will have everything you need, and you will not need to expect anything in return from anybody else.

So turn to Christ tonight. Josh, would you close us in prayer? Absolutely.

Our great God and gracious Heavenly Father, I thank You for this time of fellowship and dialogue about Your Word and the truths of Holy Scripture.

Father, I thank You for these men. I thank You for bringing us all together.

Father, I thank You for their various ministries and the things that they are doing to strengthen and encourage

Your church. Father, I pray that You would just bless them. I pray that You would bless anybody listening, that You would call sinners to Yourself.

And I pray, Father, that You would just continue the work of establishing and building

Your church. The Lord Jesus said that He would build

His church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Father, I thank

You that the church is something that You have established, and something that You are actively building and growing.

Father, in John 17, verse 21, the

Lord Jesus prayed and said, He asked that He doesn't ask for these only, speaking of the apostles, but also for all those who will believe in Me through their word, that they all may be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so that they also may be in Us, that the world may know that You have sent

Me. Father, I thank You that none of Your purposes are thwarted by human effort or human fallibility or weakness, that You are going to accomplish what

You have set about in Your heart to accomplish. And I pray that You would use this podcast to bring further unity to the body of Christ.

Father, that just as the Lord Jesus prayed, that we would be one, just as the

Godhead is one. Lord, I thank You that this doesn't depend on us and on our efforts, but it is by the power of the

Holy Spirit, and the eternal decrees, and the things that You have purposed in the counsel of Your own will,

Father, that You will bring them to fruition. I thank You again for these men. I thank You for all the listeners.

We just bless You and praise You. We thank You for all of Your kindness, and Your goodness, and Your faithfulness to us, and for all this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. Thank you all for watching the Laborers Podcast, listening or watching.

We really appreciate it. We hope you will come back and be with us next time. Thank you again.

Thank you for joining the Laborers Podcast. Remember, Jesus is

King. Live in the victory of Christ. Speak with the authority of Christ. And go share the gospel of Christ.